jff. 
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RELIGIOUS   ASPECTS  OF 
SCIENTIFIC    HEALING 


A  PSYCHO-ANALYTIC  GUIDE  WRITTEN 
FROM  THE  PATIENT'S  POINT  OF  VIEW 


BY 

DONALD  KENT  JOHNSTON 

Formerly  Assistant  to  Dr.  Elwood  Worcester, 
Emmanuel  Church,  Boston,  Mass. 

WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  BY 

DR.  ELWOOD  WORCESTER 


BOSTON 

RICHARD  G.  BADGER 

THE    GORHAM    PRESS 


COPYRIGHT,  IQ2O,  BY  RlCHAED  G.  BADGER 


All  Rights  Reserved 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


The  Gorham  Press,  Boston,  U.  S.  A. 


FOREWORD 

A  MONG  books  aiming  at  the  improvement  of 
-**•  life  through  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  the 
mind  I  believe  that  this  little  work  will  gain  for 
itself  honorable  recognition.  Long  and  con- 
stantly increasing  as  this  series  of  writings  is,  the 
combination  of  the  rational  and  religious  treat- 
ment which  characterizes  Mr.  Johnston's  essay  is 
but  scantily  represented  in  it.  Works  on  mental 
therapeutics  fall,  with  few  exceptions,  into  two 
distinct  classes.  One  of  these  aims  at  being 
strictly  scientific.  It  deals  with  those  affections  of 
the  mind  which  apparently  rest  on  no  organic 
lesion  or  progressive  deterioration  of  the  brain 
and  the  nervous  system.  It  approaches  the  sub- 
ject through  the  refined  methods  and  the  termi- 
nology of  abnormal  psychology,  at  present  almost 
exclusively  the  psychology  of  Freud.  It  regards 
morbid  psychical  states,  for  the  most  part,  as  men- 
tal mechanisms  or  defence  reactions  unconsciously 
set  up  by  the  mind  as  the  result  of  painful  experi- 
ences or  unhappy  memories,  a  process  which  may 
lead  to  actual  dissociation,  and  which  can  be  under- 
stood and  integrated  only  by  a  long  method  of 


2023892 


2  Foreword 

analysis.  Such  books  are  usually  written  for  spe- 
cialists by  specialists.  They  are  couched  in  lan- 
guage which  for  refined  subtlety  of  definition  has 
not  been  equalled  in  Europe  since  the  decline  of 
scholasticism,  and  their  authors  appear  to  be  un- 
der the  illusion  that  for  every  strange  Greek  com- 
pound they  invent,  a  new  and  inestimable  fact  has 
been  brought  to  light  in  regard  to  the  nature  of 
mind.  Here,  if  I  may  be  permitted  to  point  it  out 
to  the  wise,  is  the  greatest  danger  to  the  future 
of  their  school.  If  these  masters  of  phrase  go  on 
coining  new  and  incomprehensible  terms  to  ex- 
press their  minute  observations,  it  will  founder  in 
a  sea  of  verbiage,  as  scholasticism  foundered  when 
its  language  became  incomprehensible.  Such 
works,  I  need  not  say,  contain  no  general  philos- 
ophy of  life.  They  are  not  addressed  to  laymen 
and  they  avoid  rather  than  inculcate  metaphysical 
doctrines.  As  far  as  religion  is  recognized  by  this 
school,  it  is  as  an  instrument  of  "sublimation," 
though  much  interesting  work  has  been  done,  espe- 
cially by  Jung,  in  his  psychological  interpretation 
of  religious  myths.  The  chief  philosophical  as- 
sumption of  the  Freudian  school  is  that  of  mechan- 
istic determinism  in  every  aspect  and  action  of  the 
mind.  Its  chief  positive  achievement  has  been 
the  establishment  of  the  subconscious  element  of 
mind  on  a  basis  that  will  never  be  shaken. 

The  other  class  of  works  on  psycho-therapy, 


Foreword  3 

with  which  we  are  only  too  familiar,  consists  of 
writings  of  men  and  women  who  in  this  field  can 
lay  claim  to  no  scientific  knowledge,  but  who  are 
inspired  by  a  vast  enthusiasm.  Far  from  making 
a  careful  study  of  disease  they  desire  to  ignore  it 
or  to  deny  it  altogether,  and  to  lift  their  readers 
above  the  power  of  disease  by  the  inculcation  of  a 
massive,  powerful  faith,  a  task  which  they  some- 
times accomplish.  Their  writings  are  almost  al- 
ways founded  on  religion  or  on  some  general 
metaphysical  principle.  Some  are  frankly  and 
avowedly  Christian.  Some,  like  the  works  of 
Christian  Science  and  most  of  the  so-called  litera- 
ture of  New  Thought,  have  a  philosophy  of  their 
own  which  consists  in  the  denial  or  the  dismissal 
of  all  the  painful  and  the  humiliating  facts  of  life, 
and  the  concentration  of  the  mind  on  the  bright 
image  of  the  ideal.  If  these  writers  have  done 
nothing  else  they  have  revealed  to  us  unsuspected 
power  in  the  soul  to  triumph  over  the  ills  of  exist- 
ence, and  they  have  taught  us  that  only  the  things 
to  which  we  pay  conscious  attention  have  much 
power  over  us.  Moreover  this  philosophy  breeds 
optimism  and  is  fatal  to  the  two  greatest  enemies 
of  man — fear  and  worry. 

It  is  evident  to  anyone  approaching  this  sub- 
ject disinterestedly  that  both  these  schools  are  in 
possession  of  valuable  truths,  and  that  in  spite  of 
the  claims  of  each  to  finality  and  absolutism,  their 


4  Foreword 

truths  are  not  irreconcilable.  In  other  words,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  be  a  fanatic,  a  materialist  or  even 
a  Freudian  to  be  well  and  happy.  The  human 
heart  is  diverse  in  its  needs,  diverse  in  its  at- 
tachments. Truths  which  are  saving  to  one  man 
may  appear  mere  nonsense  or  impiety  to  another. 
This  was  the  position  taken  by  William  James 
who,  though  a  physician  and  one  of  the  greatest 
of  psychologists,  knew  how  "to  suffer  fools 
gladly,"  and  was  ever  well  disposed  toward  meta- 
physical healing. 

It  is  one  of  the  excellencies  of  the  present  treat- 
ise that  though  conceived  and  executed  in  a  scien- 
tific spirit,  it  preserves  this  precious  quality  of  the 
open  mind,  and  its  perception  of  new  possibilities 
of  co-operation  on  the  part  of  religion  and  science 
is  one  of  the  hopeful  signs  of  our  times,  namely, 
that  we  have  really  entered  a  new  era  in  which 
man's  faculties  will  no  longer  be  dissociated  by 
this  ancient  antagonism. 

Brief  as  this  work  is,  it  is  comprehensive  in  its 
scope  and  it  touches  life  helpfully  at  many  points. 
It  is  a  sincere  work  in  the  sense  that  it  is  written 
with  conviction  and  is  based  on  both  study  and 
experience,  and  through  it  shines  the  charming, 
hopeful  spirit  of  youth.  Though  its  psychology  is 
distinctly  Freudian,  the  author  avoids  Freud's 
harsh  terminology  and  expresses  himself  in  easy, 
simple  English,  and  he  allows  Freud's  insistence 


Foreword  5 

of  the  sexual  basis  of  all  psychic  disorders  to  re- 
main in  the  background  to  be  perceived  by  those 
who  know  where  to  look  for  it.  On  reading  the 
proof  of  this  work  the  thing  which  has  impressed 
me  most  is  that  it  contains  no  thought  or  sentence 
which  can  wound  the  most  sensitive  conscience  or 
depress  the  most  troubled  mind.  I  can  therefore 
commend  it  to  invalids  and  to  men  and  women 
sustaining  mental  and  moral  conflicts,  with  the  as- 
surance that  they  will  derive  nothing  but  benefit 
from  its  perusal,  and  I  shall  be  glad  to  place  it  on 
our  bookshelves,  along  with  the  other  works  which 
directly  and  indirectly  have  proceeded  from  Em- 
manuel Church  during  the  past  fourteen  years. 
Perhaps  its  most  original  thought  is  the  transfer- 
ence of  the  Freudian  wish  to  Christ. 

ELWOOD  WORCESTER. 
Emmanuel  Church,  Boston. 
February,  1920. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     SELF-TREATMENT  OF  THE  MILDER  FORMS  OF 

MENTAL  DISORDERS 15 

II     THE  UNCONSCIOUS  MIND 37 

III  THE  INTERNAL  CENSOR  AND  GUARDIAN     .  66 

IV  PERSONAL  RELIGION  AND  MENTAL  HEALTH  77 


INTRODUCTION 

THIS  brief  description  of  the  modern  scientific 
treatment  of  nervous  disorders  is  as  simply 
as  possible  set  forth  primarily  for  people  more  or 
less  nervously  afflicted — for  people  of  infirm 
nerves  and  morbid  minds.  The  subject  of  religion 
is  introduced  and  somewhat  extensively  considered 
because  of  the  many  known  instances  in  which 
religion  has  contributed  a  vital  factor  in  the  re- 
habilitation and  re-education  of  nervous  people. 

In  general  these  pages  are  intended  to  present 
first  the  salient  features  of  the  widely  accepted 
methods  of  self-help  for  the  recovery  and  preser- 
vation of  mental  health;  and  secondly  to  present 
the  scientifically  discovered  causes  of  nervous  dis- 
orders in  such  a  way  that  people  may  judge  for 
themselves  whether  or  not  their  own  efforts  to 
treat  themselves  show  satisfactory  results,  or 
whether  for  the  sake  of  a  really  durable  peace 
of  mind  they  might  not  better  seek  advice  or  help 
from  some  nerve  specialist  or  psychologically 
trained  clergyman  who  carries  on  his  healing 
work  in  conjunction  with  one  or  more  competent 
9 


io  Introduction 

physicians.  More  than  incidentally,  then,  these 
pages  concern  the  clergymen  or  social  worker 
who  inevitably  comes  in  contact  with  nervous 
people.  It  is  indeed  incumbent  on  the  clergyman 
to  know  what  are  the  requirements  for  dealing 
with  nervously  sick  people.  While  he  may  think 
that  his  disqualifications  are  absolute,  there  are 
many  ways  in  which  he  can  supplement  the 
scientific  treatment  of  mental  disorders.  It  al- 
ways lies  within  his  power  to  supply  the  religious 
factor  in  the  healing  process  in  which  respect  he 
may  occasionally  become  indispensable  for  the 
most  satisfactory  re-education  of  the  nervous  pa- 
tient. Again,  for  him  a  knowledge  of  the  method 
of  analysing  the  unconscious  mind  (psycho-analy- 
sis) is  of  the  utmost  value  in  determining  whether 
the  person  who  comes  to  him  for  help  is  suffering 
from  a  bad  conscience  or  from  causes  in  the  per- 
son's unconscious  (subconscious)  mind.  If  the 
latter  be  the  case,  he  can,  at  least,  if  he  is  not 
skilled  enough  to  mend  the  matter  himself,  see  to 
it  that  the  sufferer  is  placed  under  a  specialist's 
care.  A  familiarity,  then,  with  the  scientific  find- 
ings of  soul  analysis  makes  for  a  greater  efficiency 
in  pastoral  care  and  the  cure  of  souls. 

This  book  is  based  first  on  the  works  of  Freud, 
Jung,  Pfister,  Ferenczi,  Coriat,  Lay,  Holt,  and 
others;  and  secondly  on  the  author's  experience  in 
applying  their  method  at  Emmanuel  Church, 


Introduction  1 1 

Boston,  Massachusetts,  where  for  over  two  years 
under  the  direction  of  the  Reverend  Dr.  Worces- 
ter, he  dealt  directly  with  such  people  as  came 
there  for  mental  re-education. 

The  first  chapter  takes  up  the  ways  in  which 
a  nervous  person  can  help  himself.  The  second 
chapter  deals  with  the  unconscious  mind  (the  Un- 
conscious), describes  its  character,  explains  why 
it  is  the  seed-plot  of  nervous  disorders,  how  it 
may  be  investigated  by  a  trained  psychologist 
(either  a  nerve  specialist  or  a  competent  pastor) 
and  by  him  satisfactorily  re-educated.  In  this 
chapter  considerable  stress  is  laid  on  the  part 
played  in  the  cure  by  the  specialist  or  pastor,  for  it 
is  to  him  that  at  some  stage  of  the  re-educating, 
healing  process,  the  patient  transfers  his  uncon- 
scious likes  and  dislikes.  This  matter  of  the 
^'transference"  is  extremely  important  for  the 
cure  and  for  the  light  it  throws  on  the  healing 
power  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  third  chapter  dis- 
cusses the  function  of  the  internal,  mental  "Cen- 
sor" with  the  purpose  of  assuring  people  that 
there  is  within  the  soul  a  distinct  faculty  which 
protects  its  health  by  controlling  the  unconscious 
mentality. 

The  last  chapter  treats  of  the  vast  importance 
of  religion  for  mental  health;  it  especially  em- 
phasizes Christ's  uniqueness  as  the  supreme  per- 


12  Introduction 

son  to  whom  the  nervously  afflicted  may  transfer 
their  unconscious  emotions  and  through  Him  may 
experience  the  saving  re-education  of  their  whole 
personality. 


RELIGIOUS  ASPECTS  OF 
SCIENTIFIC  HEALING 


RELIGIOUS    ASPECTS    OF 
SCIENTIFIC   HEALING 

CHAPTER  I 

SELF-TREATMENT    OF    THE    MILDER    FORMS    OF 
MENTAL  DISORDERS 

HOW  can  I  recover  the  health  of  my  nerves 
and  keep  it?  How  can  I  maintain  from  day 
to  day  a  smoothly  working  mind  so  that  "as  my 
years  so  shall  my  strength  be"?  This  matter  of 
steady  nerves  and  well-balanced  minds  is  becom- 
ing more  and  more  of  a  question  everywhere,  as 
the  world  in  growing  busier,  more  intricate  and 
fiercer  in  competition,  multiplies  at  an  increasing 
speed  its  exacting  demands  upon  our  supply  of 
emotion,  memory,  reason  and  will-power.  To 
convince  ourselves  of  this  condition,  we  have  only 
to  consider  any  group  of  people  in  our  church, 
our  club,  our  circle  of  friends  and  observe  how 
frequently  their  conversation  turns  upon  nervous 
troubles.  The  merely  casual  discussion  of  such 
15 


1 6      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

a  topic  is  a  sign  of  the  times  and  an  unwholesome 
thing  in  itself,  for  people  are  suggestible  and  the 
subject  of  mental  ills  has  a  tendency  unduly  to 
occupy  the  attention.  We  more  than  occasionally 
meet  people  who  have  come  to  realize  that  they 
have  some  disposition  to  weak  nerves  and  for 
that  reason  freely  admit  that  under  too  trying  con- 
ditions they  would  probably  break  down.  Then, 
too,  there  is  that  group  whose  nerves  have  al- 
ready more  or  less  succumbed,  for  whom  the  ques- 
tion of  how  to  recover  mental  stability  is  dis- 
tressingly acute. 

Obviously  for  such  people,  who  in  varying  de- 
grees are  concerned  about  their  mental  health,  the 
first  word  to  be  said  is  that  mental  stability  can 
be  both  recovered  and  preserved.  Moreover,  it 
lies  in  their  own  power  abundantly  to  help  them- 
selves. Simple  methods  of  self-treatment,  which 
have  been  carefully  elaborated  and  of  late  much 
written  about,  have  well  served  many  a  person  as 
efficient  means  for  gathering  up  the  fragments  of 
his  shattered  nerves  and  for  re-shaping  them  into 
a  steady  system.  Further,  these  same  simple 
methods  with  slight  modifications,  which  anyone 
can  work  out  for  himself,  may  be  used  to  safe- 
guard the  still  healthy  mentality  from  weakness 
and  possible  breakdown. 

While  it  is  our  sole  purpose  at  this  point  to 


Self -Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders      17 

make  clear  the  far-reaching  possibilities  of  self- 
treatment,  yet  of  course  such  treatment  does  have 
its  limitations  and  it  seems  wise  to  make  the  state- 
ment here  that  if  for  one  reason  or  another  the 
methods  of  self-treatment  fail  to  integrate  the 
mind  and  build  up  its  nervous  system  there  are 
other  methods  to  be  employed  which  can  be 
depended  upon  for  satisfactory  results.  These 
more  thorough  methods,  however,  lie  outside  the 
nervous  person's  own  power  and  rest  with  the 
skill  of  the  nerve  specialist  or  trained  clergyman 
to  penetrate  into  the  sufferer's  unconscious  mind 
and  re-educate  his  hidden  forces.  Such  patients, 
too,  first  require  a  physical  examination  by  some 
doctor  to  determine  whether  or  not  there  is  any 
bodily  or  organic  cause  for  their  particular  form 
of  nervousness. 

If  now  in  turning  to  the  question  of  what  I  can 
do  for  myself,  we  think  of  the  mind  as  if  it  were  a 
household  in  which  dwell  many  kinds  of  energy 
having  almost  as  much  individuality  as  people 
themselves,  the  problem  of  mental  health  re- 
solves itself  into  a  problem  of  keeping  the  peace 
between  definitely  opposing  mental  forces.  That 
is,  we  are  confronted  with  the  task  of  nourishing 
and  holding  the  loyal  support  of  the  wholesome 
ways  of  thinking  and  feeling,  while  we  starve  out 
the  unwelcome  guests  from  the  house  of  the  soul. 


1 8      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

Fortunately  the  rightful  inmates  tend  naturally  to 
look  after  their  own  welfare;  our  real  task  is  to 
distinguish  and  deal  summarily  with  each  slyly  in- 
sinuating weakness  which  is  all  the  more  danger- 
ous because  it  may  appear  in  an  insidious  and  al- 
luring form.  Thus,  for  example,  over-indulgence 
in  day  dreaming  may  actually  suffuse  us  with  a 
kind  of  pleasurable  feeling  but  in  time  may  end 
seriously  by  rendering  us  incapable  of  living  in  a 
world  of  hard  fact.  The  day  dreamer  by  with- 
drawing into  his  own  feelings  and  emotions, 
shows  a  disposition  to  lose  touch  with  reality  and 
to  develop  an  introspective,  ingrowing  mind, 
whereas  some  one  has  said  that  "the  true  health 
of  a  man  is  to  have  a  soul  without  being  aware 
of  it." 

To  treat  ourselves  in  an  intelligent  way  re- 
quires of  us  a  knowledge  of  just  what  forms  the 
unwelcome  guests  may  assume.  The  more  we 
know  the  better  we  can  "try  conclusions  with 
them"  and  evict  them.  These  self-insinuating 
weaknesses  come  in  the  shape  of  fears,  depres- 
sions, the  sense  of  inferiority,  fixed  ideas,  halluci- 
nations and  unreasonable  compulsions;  or  they 
may  appear  as  vague,  fidgety,  panicy  sensations 
making  us  irritable  by  day  and  sleepless  by  night. 
If  these  infirmities  be  of  a  hazy,  ambiguous  char- 
acter, we  are  sufferers  from  nerve  weakness  or 
neurasthenia ;  if  they  be  sharply  outlined  and  easily 


Self-Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders       19 

distinguishable  as  is,  for  instance,  a  strong  com- 
pulsion, we  are  sufferers  from  soul  weakness  or 
psych  asthenia.  Besides  these,  there  appear  at 
times  in  some  people  marked  perversions  of  nature 
which  require  absolutely  the  attention  of  the 
nerve  specialist. 

Nevertheless,  formidable  as  these  two  groups 
of  nerve  and  soul  weakness  may  be,  it  is  possible 
for  us  single-handed  to  control  them  and  to  a  sur- 
prising degree  render  them  incapable  of  holding 
dominion  over  our  motor  faculties,  that  is,  they 
can  neither  hinder  and  inhibit  our  activities  nor 
impell  us  to  unreasonable  behavior.  Furthermore, 
just  as  soon  as  these  weaknesses  are  satisfactorily 
disposed  of,  the  bodily  irregularities  which  are  apt 
to  accompany  them  tend  to  disappear.  Thus, 
methods  of  self-treatment  not  only  heal  definite 
disorders  of  nerve  functioning  and  soul  life  but  do 
away  as  well  with  indigestion,  constipation,  head- 
ache and  a  host  of  lesser  ills. 

The  first  important  point  in  self-treatment  con- 
sists of  this  dogmatic,  positive  command:  face 
fairly  and  squarely  everything  which  troubles  the 
mind.  Any  idea  or  problem  which  has  come  to 
you  as  a  great  shock  or  has  had  for  years  an 
accumulative,  irritating  effect  needs  to  be  dealt 
with  by  your  reason.  The  popular  exhortation  is 
to  "forget  it"  and  we  are  tempted  to  shut  the 


2O     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

trouble  out  of  our  minds.  But  in  forcibly  trying 
to  rid  our  minds  of  the  harassing  subject,  we 
thereby  thrust  it  into  the  unconscious  part  of  our 
mentality  where,  as  we  shall  see  later,  it  branches 
out  and  creates  one  nervous  (neurotic)  symptom 
after  another.  Every  shocking  idea  or  grief  needs 
attention  and  though  at  first  it  may  be  that  all  we 
can  do  is  to  edge  up  to  it  with  caution,  we  will 
sooner  or  later  be  able  to  meet  it  with  emotional 
calm  and  stare  it  out  of  countenance. 

It  is  a  salutary  practice  at  the  end  of  each  day 
for  the  mind  to  take  stock  of  what  has  happened 
during  the  waking  hours  and  come  to  immediate 
terms  with  any  thought  or  situation  which  has 
any  strongly  emotional  character  about  it  of  a  dis- 
tressing kind.  You  simply  confront  the  thing  and 
resolve  to  disarm  it  of  its  emotional  weapon. 
Emotional  stability,  freedom  from  anger,  fear, 
disgust,  resentment,  is  a  first  requirement  for 
nervous  health  and  we  are  therefore  immediately 
concerned  with  definite  ways  for  keeping  our 
emotional  self-control. 

How  can  we  maintain  emotional  stability? 
Chiefly  through  prayer.  Nothing  steadies  the 
emotional  quicksilver  in  us  like  prayer.  The  be- 
liever in  and  constant  user  of  prayer  has  a  tre- 
mendous lever  for  lifting  his  spirit  above  the  over- 
whelming floods  of  anger,  resentment  and  despair. 


Self-Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders       21 

Many  an  earnestly  uttered  cry  to  God  for  relief 
has  broken  the  paralysing  grip  of  fear  and  de- 
pression, and  has  made  people  see  the  absurdity 
of  their  unreasonable  ideas.  The  answer  to  such 
prayer  manifests  itself  in  the  widening  of  the  nar- 
rowed field  of  consciousness  so  that  the  mind  sees 
the  outside  world  in  its  true  perspective,  while  the 
emotional  fear  of  fear  and  other  morbid  obses- 
sions utterly  vanish.  The  sickly  mind  has  either 
too  high  an  emotional  coloring  or  else  too  low 
and  the  effect  of  prayer  is  either  to  staunch  the 
inflow  of  emotions  which  would  engulf  the  mind 
or  else  cause  the  emotional  level  to  rise  as  con- 
ditions require.  Prayer,  however  is  not  a  magic 
formula;  it  does  not  imply  any  potency  in  itself  to 
effect  relief  and  exorcise  the  spectres  from  the 
mind.  Prayer  is  an  act  of  faith  in  the  healing 
nearness  and  the  reassuring  indwelling  of  the 
Spirit  of  God.  If  for  any  reason  you  are  not  able 
to  pray  to  God  as  a  personal  Spirit,  at  least  pray 
to  some  symbolic  idea  of  Him  as,  for  instance,  the 
Cosmic  Harmony,  the  Soul  of  the  Universe,  the 
Spirit  of  all  Good;  for  the  effective  element  in 
prayer  is  a  belief  in  the  presence  of  a  healing 
power  greater  than  any  thought  which  the  mind 
can  conjure  up,  that  is,  prayer  is  a  cry  for  a  har- 
mony outside  of  ourselves  to  come  and  adjust  us 
to  the  facts  of  life.  If,  then,  the  reaction  from 


22     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

the  practice  of  prayer  means  for  us  a  right  per- 
spective in  our  thoughts  and  feelings  even  to  the 
extent  of  allowing  us  at  times  to  appreciate  not 
only  the  unreality  but  the  actually  humorous 
character  of  the  ugly  phantoms  in  our  mind,  then 
it  has  proved  itself  a  veritably  therapeutic  factor 
in  our  returning  right  relationship  to  the  world. 
To  be  sure  at  the  first,  the  mental  fiends  from  time 
to  time  may  come  trooping  back  to  work  us  woe, 
and  our  prayers  may  seem  ineffectual  in  coping 
with  them,  yet  the  undeniable  fact  that  prayer 
once  brought  us  power  should  be  sufficient  pledge 
that  it  will  serve  us  as  well  again.  But  prayer  to 
be  a  telling  factor  for  health  must  be  of  the  un- 
ceasing kind,  nor  should  people  of  too  delicate 
sensibilities  demur  that  such  prayers  are  an  un- 
worthy sort  of  begging.  Jesus,  the  master  physi- 
cian, had  tender  regard  for  petitions  and  requests 
for  health.  He  prepared  Himself  for  His  heal- 
ing work  through  prayer  and  by  it  maintained  His 
own  calmness  and  endurance.  The  prayer  of  faith 
called  forth  His  special  commendation  and,  as  we 
shall  discuss  in  the  last  chapter,  the  prayer  rela- 
tionship to  Him  is  positively  necessary  to  the 
fullest  re-education,  that  is,  we  can  best  turn  our 
in-growing  souls  outward  by  faith  and  the  service 
of  others. 

The  next  point  in  our  method  is  the  practice  of 


Self-Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders       23 

relaxation  about  which  much  has  been  written. 
The  habit  of  relaxing  the  body  and  mind  is  in- 
valuable for  keeping  one's  nerves  intact  and  for 
recovering  their  strength.  Relaxation  is  an  ab- 
breviated but  no  less  effectual  form  of  rest  cure. 
When  we  come  to  consider  religion  and  mental 
health  in  the  last  chapter,  we  will  have  occasion  to 
think  of  relaxation  as  a  form  of  prayer  or  at  least 
the  prerequisite  to  quiet  thinking  of  a  spiritual 
kind.  We  are  concerned  at  present  only  with  the 
art  or  technique  of  relaxation. 

To  relax  in  a  thorough  way  we  assume  an  easy, 
reclining  position  and  think  of  every  bit  of  ten- 
sion and  drawn  feeling  as  utterly  disappearing 
from  the  scalp,  the  eyes,  the  mouth,  the  throat, 
the  back  of  the  neck,  the  shoulders,  the  chest,  the 
arms,  the  fingers,  the  abdomen,  the  base  of  the 
spine,  the  thighs,  the  knees  and  the  ankles.  We 
should  go  through  this  process  many  times  a  day, 
thinking  of  ourselves  as  having  the  fluid  quality 
of  a  tranquil  stream. 

It  takes  but  a  little  practice  before  we  begin  to 
notice  the  effects  of  relaxation.  Sooner  than  we 
expect  we  discover  that  we  can  relax  in  any  posi- 
tion— in  sitting,  walking  and  standing.  What  we 
should  look  for  as  a  result  of  relaxation  is  the 
quieting  down  of  our  feverish  haste,  the  easing 
off  of  our  tingling  nerves  and  the  positive  feeling 


24      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

of  composure  and  calm.  In  relaxed  moments,  our 
stream  of  thought  and  feeling  flows  freely  and 
there  are  no  back  eddies  of  wearying  self-con- 
sciousness. 

This  easy  flow  of  our  emotional  currents  is  ex- 
tremely important.  Nervous  disorders  are  not  so 
much  a  matter  of  illogical  thoughts  as  the  uneven 
and  poor  quality  of  our  emotions.  They  run  at 
a  low  ebb  in  sickly  moments,  but  assisted  by  re- 
laxation they  tend  to  flood  back  and  float  the  soul 
above  the  reefs  and  shallows  of  depression.  But 
it  is  not  merely  in  the  matter  of  releasing  our  posi- 
tive tone  feelings  that  relaxation  is  such  help  but 
also  in  the  matter  of  regulating  or  even  staunch- 
ing the  undue  inrush  of  injurious  feelings,  for  ex- 
ample, if  one  relaxes  immediately  after  giving  way 
to  a  burst  of  anger  one  may  quickly  regain  self- 
control  and  composure. 

Relaxation  because  of  its  power  to  release  or 
regulate  our  emotional  life,  as  the  case  requires, 
must  in  some  way  act  upon  that  special  faculty  in 
our  minds  called  the  Censor.  This  should  be  re- 
membered when  we  take  up  the  function  of  the 
Censor,  for  it  is  this  faculty  which  guards  our  in- 
tellectual, moral  and  emotional  poise. 

Further,  relaxation  with  its  ability  to  soothe 
and  heal  is  a  blessing  indeed  to  that  large  body 
of  mentally  sick  people  who  cannot  afford  to  go 


Self-Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders      25 

to  a  sanatorium  to  recover  or  for  that  matter  can- 
not afford  to  lose  a  single  day  of  work.  They 
are  under  the  necessity  of  regaining  mental  equi- 
librium amid  the  distractions  of  clanking  looms, 
crowded  shops  or  this  or  that  uncongenial  place 
of  employment.  In  this  connection  one  of  Christ's 
works  of  healing  seems  particularly  illuminating. 
According  to  the  story  about  the  Ten  Lepers, 
Jesus  did  not  heal  the  lepers  immediately  but 
ordered  them  to  go  to  Jerusalem  and  show  them- 
selves to  the  priests.  What  is  as  extraordinary 
as  it  is  enlightening  is  the  fact  that  "as  they  went 
they  were  cleansed."  It  follows,  then  that  if  the 
lepers  were  healed  as  they  betook  themselves  to 
Jerusalem,  so,  too,  may  many  a  person  in  our  time 
throw  off  his  mental  ills  as  he  goes  about  his  day's 
work.  Here  is  hope  indeed  for  people  of  small 
means !  A  few  moments'  relaxation  at  bed  time, 
before  meals  or  briefly  in  the  midst  of  any  kind 
of  work  will  tend  to  produce  sound  sleep,  good 
digestion  and  a  relish  and  appetite  for  work,  while 
more  prolonged  periods  of  relaxation  will  allow 
the  freer,  fresher  modes  of  thinking  to  displace 
the  fears,  fixed  ideas,  depressed  moods  and  un- 
reasonable compulsions. 

Again,  anyone  who  is  endeavoring  to  extricate 
himself  from  the  alcohol  or  drug  habit  need  have 
no  fear  of  those  inevitable  moments  of  sinking 


26      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

sensation,  of  tingling  nerves  or  of  the  sense  of  in- 
feriority and  inadequacy  which  make  him  crave 
the  alcoholic  or  drug  stimulant,  for  immediate  re- 
course to  a  relaxed  condition  will  supply  him  with 
normal  stimulation  and  the  sense  of  superiority. 

It  would  seem  as  if  beneath  our  fluctuating 
thoughts  and  moods,  there  were  a  deeper,  funda- 
mental self  which  comes  into  control  just  as  soon 
as  we  have  eased  off  the  tension  from  both  our 
minds  and  bodies.  It,  then,  becomes  a  question  of 
decided  importance  how  to  reach  this  fundamental 
self  and  build  up  its  morale  and  stimulate  its 
thought.  Thought  is  the  thing  which  heals.  Re- 
laxation does  not  heal ;  it  simply  assists  in  freeing 
our  own  healing  thought  and  that  thought  itself 
must  be  nourished  with  other  constructive  thought. 
When  we  are  convinced  that  our  prayer  for  health 
has  been  answered,  the  evidence  on  which  we  base 
our  conviction  is  the  fact  that  we  have  been  sud- 
denly mastered  by  thoughts  and  tonic  emotions 
which  we  were  of  ourselves  powerless  to  supply 
in  our  hour  of  need,  that  is,  we  are  convinced  that 
God  sent  us  sustaining  thoughts  and  feeling.  This 
is  the  essential  point — it  was  thought  which 
changed  our  mental  condition  for  the  better.  From 
this  it  follows  that  as  far  as  possible  we  should 
enrich  our  deeper  selves  with  every  healing 
thought  we  can,  then  when  relaxation  releases  our 


Self-Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders      27 

deeper  selves  they  will  be  that  much  richer  for  our 
provision  and  foresight.  This  brings  us  to  the 
third  point  in  the  method  of  self-treatment  which 
is  self-suggestion. 

Prayer,  relaxation,  self-suggestion — these  are 
the  fundamental  features  in  the  self-treatment 
method.  Prayer,  however,  stands  by  itself  alone 
while  relaxation  is  dependent  for  its  full  force  on 
the  practice  of  self-suggestion.  To  use  self-sug- 
gestion, you  proceed  as  follows:  when  you  have 
induced  the  relaxed  state  for  your  body  and  mind 
you  make  to  yourself  some  terse,  positive  sugges- 
tion such  as  "I  shall  be  so  superior  to  this  or  that 
fear  that  I  shall  actually  forget  it,"  "I  am  so 
rested  that  I  can  do  my  work  cheerfully  and  well," 
"I  have  all  the  courage  I  need  to  meet  this  situa- 
tion and  trial,"  or  "I  trust  my  deeper  self  to  make 
me  equal  to  all  the  requirements  of  life,  to  keep 
me  composed,  to  make  me  effective  and  strong." 
It  is  to  be  noticed  that  every  good  suggestion 
should  contain  the  thought  that  we  can  resign  our- 
selves with  absolute  confidence  into  the  hands  of 
our  deeper  souls.  Nothing  strengthens  the  morale 
of  the  fundamental  self  better  than  the  practice  of 
self-suggestion. 

Just  why  it  is  that  our  minds  tend  to  act  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  positive  qualities  of  the  ideas 
we  suggest  must  remain  an  open  question.  The 


28      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

theory  is  that  some  part  of  our  unconscious  (sub- 
conscious) mind  picks  up  the  self-suggested  ideas, 
absorbs  them  and  puts  them  into  action,  making 
us  cheerful,  rested  and  courageous.  But  self-sug- 
gestion must  be  consistently  practiced  and  posi- 
tive ideas  must  be  constantly  held  in  the  mind. 
No  one  should  be  content  with  a  few  trials  at  self- 
suggestion;  the  thing  we  desire  to  be  or  possess 
must  be  clung  to  even  in  the  face  of  apparently 
continuing  failure. 

Self-suggestion  is  an  excellent  way  for  purposely 
substituting  good  thoughts  for  bad.  It  would 
seem  that  we  cannot  dogmatically  command  our 
mental  troubles  to  vanish.  They  tend  to  stick  the 
more  firmly  when  we  order  them  to  leave.  But 
they  may  be  crowded  out  of  our  attention  and  di- 
vested of  their  unpleasant  emotional  coloring  by 
substituting  wholesome  thoughts  by  means  of  self- 
suggestion.  The  stronger  substituted  thought 
starves  out  the  unwelcome  guests  of  the  soul  by 
robbing  them  of  sustenance.  If  by  a  determined 
act  of  will  we  resolve  to  act  and  make  decisions 
only  when  we  are  in  possession  of  positive  thoughts 
we  will  discover  that  the  troublesome,  depressing 
negative  thoughts  grow  weaker  and  weaker 
through  lack  of  exercise. 

When  self-suggestion  has  accomplished  its  per- 
fect work  we  become  aware  of  the  happy  fact  by 


Self -Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders       29 

noticing  that  our  attention  no  longer  turns  inward 
to  our  maladies  or  shows  any  interest  in  our 
mental  life.  The  normal  state  of  mind  means 
that  our  consciousness  of  self  assumes  a  distinctly 
secondary  place  and  our  attention  primarily  turns 
outward  to  the  world  of  affairs.  If  it  be  true  that 
by  suggestion  we  can  train  ourselves  to  think 
away  from  ourselves,  so,  too,  by  suggestion  we 
can  induce  our  bodily  functions  to  act  normally 
without  in  the  least  attracting  our  attention. 

Granting,  then,  that  our  nervous  affections  rang- 
ing from  mild  fatigues  to  actual  hallucinations, 
tend  to  disappear  as  the  substitution  of  wholesome 
ideas  begins  to  crowd  them  out,  we  may  gain 
some  notion  of  the  uses  self-suggestion  might  be 
put  to  in  normal  mental  life.  We  would  find  it 
much  to  our  advantage  if  we  frequently  suggested 
to  ourselves  that  our  memory  should  widen  out 
and  be  more  active,  that  our  judgment  should  be 
profounder,  that  our  attention  should  attain  a 
greater  power  of  concentration  and  that  our 
imagination  should  grow  more  versatile  and 
creative.  Artists,  poets,  musicians,  writers,  public 
speakers  and  business  men,  who  use  specially  ap- 
plied forms  of  self-suggestion  in  their  work,  testify 
to  how  large  an  extent  their  faculties  are  thereby 
heightened.  Self-suggestion,  therefore,  is  one  of 
the  important  ways  for  preserving  the  integrity 


30     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

and  efficiency  of  the  mind,  and  anyone  engaged  in 
a  profession  or  trade  which  has  the  tendency  to 
tighten  up  the  nerves  and  key  up  the  mind  would 
do  well  to  hold  constantly  before  his  mind  sucfi 
ideas  as  make  for  quietness  and  self-composure. 

Again,  one  might  profitably  use  self-suggestion 
as  if  it  had  the  unerring,  mechanical  make-up  of  an 
alarm  clock  which  one  can  set  ahead  to  perform 
at  some  given  time.  That  is,  one  can  set  his  mind 
to  act  on  an  idea  and  also  determine  the  time 
when  the  action  shall  take  place.  This  fact  enables 
a  person  to  prepare  for  an  ordeal  and  unpleasant 
situation  which  he  knows  he  must  inevitably  meet. 
For  example,  let  us  suppose  that  a  person  is  under 
the  necessity  of  appearing  in  court  as  a  witness. 
The  experience  is  new  and  full  of  terror;  he  espe- 
cially dreads  being  cross-questioned  because  he  has 
anticipated  the  confusion  he  will  probably  exhibit 
under  the  fire  of  the  opposing  attorneys.  But  the 
necessity  of  appearing  in  the  case  need  not  cause 
a  single  hour  of  apprehension,  because  if  he  sug- 
gests to  himself  that  at  the  required  time  he  will 
enjoy  complete  self-possession,  he  may  rest  as- 
sured without  further  provision  that  the  suggested 
idea  will,  at  the  appropriate  moment,  spring  out 
of  his  unconscious  mind  and  assist  him  to  acquit 
himself  with  credit.  From  this  we  learn  that  one 
has  first  to  suggest  strongly  the  desired  quality, 


Self -Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders      31 

then  to  dismiss  it  from  the  mind  and  confidently 
to  await  results.  It  may  be  that  Jesus  had  some- 
thing of  this  idea  in  mind  when  He  said  that  it  is 
the  Holy  Spirit  who  speaks  for  us  in  critical  situa- 
tions and  there  is  no  use  in  premeditating  what  we 
will  say.  A  large  use,  too,  can  be  made  of  self- 
suggestion  in  the  cultivation  of  our  religious 
thought  which  must  react  beneficially  on  our 
emotional  stability.  To  suggest  frequently  that 
we  will  be  imbued  with  a  spirit  of  gratitude  to 
God,  of  faith  in  His  providence  and  of  cheerful 
resignation  to  whatever  cross  we  have  to  carry, 
will  have  a  tonic  effect  on  the  whole  personality — 
soul,  mind,  and  body.  If  this  seems  to  degrade  the 
motive  for  being  religiously  minded  to  a  crass  de- 
sire for  bodily  and  mental  comfort,  it  is  to  be  re- 
membered that  one  of  the  ideals  of  life  and  there- 
fore of  religion  is  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body. 

Self-treatment,  then,  involves  the  practice  of 
prayer,  of  relaxation  and  of  self-suggestion  and  we 
have  touched  briefly  on  the  reason  for  their  ef- 
fectiveness. Prayer,  to  be  sure,  must  always  re- 
main a  mystery;  we  can  appreciate  its  results  but 
we  can  not  explain  what  its  full  process  involves. 
As  to  self-suggestion,  it  at  once  raises  the  ques- 
tion as  to  what  our  unconscious  mind  is.  In  fact, 
the  Unconscious  underlies  our  entire  discussion  and 
for  the  consideration  of  nervous  disorders  as  well 


32      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

as  for  the  continuance  of  mental  health  it  is  of  the 
utmost  importance.  The  Unconscious  has  many 
levels  and  many  functions  of  which  we  are  little 
aware,  because  we  cannot  become  conscious  of  it 
except  indirectly,  nevertheless  many  facts  about  it 
and  its  general  characteristics  are  well  known. 

Naturally,  then,  we  must  consider  what  is  gen- 
erally known  about  the  unconscious  mind  because 
in  it  lies  deeply  imbedded  the  cause  of  every  nerv- 
ous disorder.  When,  moreover,  we  have  gained 
some  insight  into  the  complexity  of  our  Uncon- 
scious, we  may  judge  for  ourselves  to  what  extent 
our  methods  of  self  treatment  are  satisfactory  for 
our  particular  mental  disturbance.  It  may  be  that 
after  we  have  taken  into  consideration  a  few  of 
the  most  common  forms  of  nervous  trouble  we 
may  decide  that  it  were  better  to  supplement  our 
own  efforts  for  regaining  mental  stability  by  going 
to  some  specialist  or  psychologically-trained  pas- 
tor and  letting  him  probe  deeply  into  our  uncon- 
scious life  and  straighten  out  the  twisted  and 
crossed  wires  of  our  i.ethermost  selves. 

Before  we  take  up,  However,  the  main  points  in 
our  Unconscious,  it  seems  wise  to  describe  the  art 
of  applied  suggestion  as  the  trained  physician, 
priest  or  pastor  makes  use  of  it  in  the  matter  of 
re-educating  a  person's  (patient's)  nervous  forces. 


Self-Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders      33 

To  make  the  matter  concrete,  let  us  suppose  that 
you  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  were  best 
to  supplement  your  own  effort  to  regain  mental 
health  by  placing  yourself  in  the  hands  of  some 
competent  Re-educator  (either  a  doctor  or  clergy- 
man). You  go  to  his  office  or  study  with  rather 
intimate  information  about  yourself  to  communi- 
cate. The  first  thing  to  do  is  to  feel  the  utmost 
confidence  in  the  Re-educator  both  in  respect  to 
his  skill  and  his  character.  You  should  go,  thatts, 
with  the  self-suggested  idea  that  the  men  engaged 
in  the  business  of  re-educating  other  people  are 
themselves  above  moral  reproach.  This  precon- 
ceived idea  tends  to  relieve  you  from  the  feeling  of 
fear  and  hampering  self-restraint. 

The  Re-educator  seats  you,  his  "patient"  in  an 
easy  chair  and  then  suggests  that  every  bit  of  ten- 
sion and  drawn  feeling  shall  leave  the  body  from 
the  scalp  to  the  soles  of  the  feet. 

He  talks  quietly,  soothingly  and  slowly  and  bids 
you  think  of  yourself  as  in  the  midst  of  refreshing 
scenes,  as,  for  instance,  on  the  ocean,  in  some 
woodland,  beside  some  lake.  It  is  indeed  surpris- 
ing what  a  quieting  effect  an  oral  description  and 
running  narrative  of  the  calm  and  beauty  of  Na- 
ture produce  on  a  tired  and  scatter-brained  mind. 
The  probable  reason  for  this  effectiveness  lies  in 
the  Re-educator's  ability  to  awaken  in  the  "pa- 


34     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

tient"  pleasant  memories  of  green  fields,  of  moun- 
tains and  summer  skies.  It  is  during  or  after  this 
restful  description  that  the  Re-educator  suggests 
such  ideas  as  your  case  requires.  They  will  be 
ideas  which  naturally  possess  a  quality  and  force 
sufficient  to  crowd  out  your  fears,  your  fixed  ideas 
and  your  compulsions ;  or  the  Re-educator  may  di- 
rectly but  never  too  dogmatically  suggest  that 
your  specific  mental  weakness  shall  give  place  to  a 
positive  emotional  feeling  and  to  thoughts  of  brav- 
ery and  courage.  Further,  the  Re-educator  will  at 
least  indirectly  impart  the  notion  to  you  that  you 
will  be  shortly  so  self-sufficient  that  you  can,  with- 
out emotional  disturbance,  face  and  reason  with 
your  dark  thoughts  and  moods  and  that  your  mind 
will  turn  outward  cheerfully  to  the  facts  of  life. 

The  Re-educator  exerts  no  magic  power;  his  is 
simply  the  scientific  art  of  arousing  your  own  heal- 
ing memories,  for  instance,  if  under  his  suggestion 
you  pass  into  a  refreshing  sleep  it  is  only  because 
his  voice  or  his  words  recall  to  you  the  childhood 
voices  which  lulled  you  to  sleep.  That  is,  he  frees 
the  imprisoned  feelings  and  healing  forces  of  your 
own  unconscious  mind.  This  will  become  clearer 
in  the  next  chapter  as  will  also  the  part  played  in 
the  healing  process  by  the  Re-educator  to  whom 
you,  the  patient,  unconsciously  for  a  brief  time 


Self -Treatment  of  Mental  Disorders      35 

transfer  the  feelings  you  used  to  entertain  toward 
those  people  in  your  childhood  who  were  of  in- 
tense emotional  interest  to  you.  The  Re-educator, 
that  is,  for  the  time  being  stands  as  a  substitute  in 
your  eyes  without  your  knowing  it,  for  your  father 
and  mother,  your  brother  and  sister,  your  friend. 
This  fact  should  cause  no  embarrassment  or  alarm; 
it  is  natural  and  plays  a  large  part  in  determining 
the  choice  of  our  friends  whom  we  take  to  because 
of  their  unconscious  resemblance  to  the  dear  faces 
of  our  childhood  days.  Besides,  this  "transfer- 
ence" of  our  feeling  to  the  Re-educator  is  always 
a  fleeting  thing  and  may  not  even  be  at  all  notice- 
able. Later  we  shall  come  to  value  this  "transfer- 
ence" as  one  of  the  chief  factors  in  our  cure  and 
we  may  think  of  it  as  one  of  the  reasons  why  we 
are  attracted  to  Jesus  Christ  in  Whom  we  see  an 
idealized  father  or  mother  or  brother  or  sister 
or  friend. 

The  expert  Re-educator  understands  this  phase 
of  the  subject  perfectly;  he  knows  the  "transfer- 
ence" will  soon  pass  and  he  is  not  inclined  to  hin- 
der its  natural  progress  to  some  lasting  interest 
or  person.  In  fact  when  you  come  to  him  for  sug- 
gestion and  relaxation,  he  is  chiefly  concerned  in 
fastening  your  emotional  interest  on  the  people 
and  circumstances  which  ordinarily  should  absorb 


36     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

your  attention.  But  to  do  this  successfully  he 
must  know  the  hidden  forces  and  wishes  in  your 
unconscious  mind.  In  a  word,  he  is  the  best  Re- 
educator  and  user  of  suggestion  who  first  gains 
an  acquaintance  with  his  "patient's"  Unconscious. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   UNCONSCIOUS  MIND 

ONE  must  not  be  startled  to  learn  strange 
things  about  the  unconscious  mind  nor  grow 
morbid  about  them.  We  will  take  them  up  pres- 
ently but  our  immediate  interest  centres  in  the  fact 
that  the  Unconscious  is  the  seed-plot  of  all  nerv- 
ous disorders  and  that  it  needs  to  be  penetrated, 
explored  and  persuaded  to  give  up  its  secrets  if 
nervous  disorders  are  to  be  cured  at  their  source. 
The  actual  stages  in  the  healing  of  any  nervous 
trouble  are  first  a  knowledge  of  the  Unconscious; 
second,  the  fullfillment  of  its  wishes,  and  third,  the 
transforming  and  re-education  of  its  forces  so  that 
they  shall  faithfully  serve  the  interests,  en- 
thusiasms and  ideals  of  the  conscious  mind. 

In  the  first  chapter  we  thought  of  the  Uncon- 
scious as  an  obedient  kind  of  servant  to  which  we 
can  make  suggestions  with  the  reasonable  assur- 
ance that  the  Unconscious  will  supply  us  with  the 
qualities  of  the  suggested  ideas  whenever  we  need 
them :  we  appeal  to  the  Unconscious  for  sleep  and 
sleep  it  induces ;  we  bid  the  Unconscious  make  us 

37 


38      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

brave  and  brave  we  become  at  least  for  the  oc- 
casion we  have  in  mind.  In  fact,  throughout  the 
following  discussion  we  should  not  lose  sight  of 
what  the  Unconscious  is  at  its  best — it  is  a  rich 
storehouse  of  helpful  emotional  energy.  But  the 
Unconscious  has  another  side ;  it  lives  a  decidedly 
independent  life  with  very  little  of  the  servant  in 
its  make-up. 

The  Unconscious  in  each  of  us,  without  our 
knowing  it,  of  course,  has  its  own  cluster  of  mem- 
ories, its  own  emotions,  wishes  and  will-power.  It 
lives  an  in-growing  life  with  no  interest  in  the  ac- 
tivities of  our  conscious  mind.  In  fact,  the  Un- 
conscious is  antagonistic  to  our  conscious  mind, 
would  like  to  usurp  its  place  and  gain  dominion 
over  our  speech  and  actions.  Sometimes  it  is  able 
to  gain  such  dominion  and  then  it  is  that  nervous 
disorders  show  themselves,  because  the  conscious 
mind  will  not  surrender  the  control  of  our  actions 
without  a  vigorous  struggle  for  its  just  rights. 

It  is,  therefore,  more  accurate  to  say  that  nerv- 
ous disorders  are  due  to  the  conflict  arising  be- 
tween the  conscious  and  unconscious  minds  as  to 
which  shall  control  our  thoughts,  moods  and  ac- 
tions. The  house  of  the  soul  becomes  divided 
against  itself  because  of  the  radical  difference  be- 
tween the  unconscious  and  conscious  mind. 

The  conscious  mind,  briefly  stated,  is  our  wak- 


The  Unconscious  Mind  39 

ing  mind ;  it  includes  our  reason,  our  memory,  will- 
power and  attention.  It  is  disposed  to  revery  and 
the  play  of  the  imagination  while  at  all  times  it  is 
colored  with  some  degree  of  emotion.  We  may 
think  of  the  conscious  mind  as  the  source  of  our 
plans,  morals,  ideals  and  conscience — it  is  our 
civilized  mind. 

The  Unconscious,  on  the  contrary,  is  the  un- 
tamed, uncivilized,  primitive  part  of  our  thinking. 
It  is  the  larger  part  of  our  mentality  and  retains 
every  one  of  the  memories,  feelings  and  wishes 
which  we  have  ever  experienced.  It  is  asserted 
that  its  vaguest  memories  go  back  to  the  months 
before  we  were  born.  There  is,  at  least,  no  doubt 
that  its  impulses  come  down  to  us  from  the  re- 
motest period  of  human  history.  Everything  which 
the  race  has  ever  felt  or  desired  continues  to  live 
in  each  one  of  us.  We  have,  then,  to  consider 
three  characteristics  of  the  Unconscious ;  first,  the 
Unconscious  is  a  child — its  impulses  and  emotions 
react  to  the  slightest  stimulation,  that  is,  its  im- 
pulses and  emotions  are  its  wishes;  secondly  it  is  a 
veritable  savage,  reflecting  in  each  one  of  us  the 
brute  life  of  our  earliest  ancestors ;  and  thirdly,  the 
Unconscious  is  a  coward — it  constantly  craves  to 
be  safe. 

It  is  easy  to  see,  then,  that  our  waking,  conscious 
mind  with  its  ideals  and  moral  judgments  must  be, 


40     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

whether  we  know  it  or  not,  in  perpetual  conflict 
with  the  Unconscious,  which  on  its  childish,  brutal 
and  cowardly  side,  tries  to  gain  dominion  over  our 
faculties  and  thus  satisfy  its  cravings  or  uncon- 
scious wishes.  It  is  the  unconscious  wish  to  love 
and  hate  and  all  the  other  wishes  within  us  which 
predispose  the  mind  to  nervous  disorders.  But  the 
normal  mind,  ordinarily,  by  means  of  its  censoring 
faculty,  holds  the  Unconscious  in  check  without 
realizing  the  fact  and  even  people  who  are  inclined 
to  give  way  to  the  invasions  of  their  unconscious 
wishes,  memories  and  impulses,  may  still  remain 
masters  of  themselves  by  self-treatment.  Their 
success  in  this  particular  simply  indicates  that  their 
prayers  and  their  practice  of  self-suggestion  have 
sufficiently  strengthened  their  conscious  minds  to 
hold  the  Unconscious  in  satisfactory  subjection. 
But  under  self-treatment  there  is  always  the  pos- 
sibility that  the  conscious  control  may  weaken  if 
circumstances  are  too  unfavorable  and  allow  the 
Unconscious  to  cause  trouble.  The  more  thorough 
way  of  guarding  against  the  symptoms  and  morbid 
manifestations  of  the  Unconscious  is  to  probe 
deeply  into  its  secret  chambers,  gratify  its  wishes 
and  set  their  emotional  power  to  work  to  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  civilized  and  progressive,  conscious 
mind. 

The  Unconscious  is  the  only  mentality  we  have 


The  Unconscious  Mind  41 

in  our  pre-natal  and  infant  days.  In  these  first 
days,  the  Unconscious  is  solely  an  appetite — it 
craves  and  enjoys  the  sensation  of  being  nourished. 
Our  enjoyment  of  the  way  we  first  receive  nourish- 
ment lives  on  in  us  and  perhaps  accounts  for  the 
unconscious  habit  so  many  adults  have  of  putting 
things  into  their  mouths,  for  instance,  pens  and 
pencils.  In  the  next  stage  of  growth  the  infant  dis- 
covers that  parts  of  its  body  are  sources  of  pleas- 
urable feeling.  These  parts  are  the  so-called  love- 
exciting  or  erogenous  zones.  This  fact,  too,  is  un- 
doubtedly the  basis  of  certain  peculiar  habits,  traits 
and  gestures  which  show  themselves  frequently  in 
later  life. 

In  the  course  of  time,  the  infant  discovers  that 
its  parents  gratify  its  waking  desire  to  be  loved. 
This  fact  makes  its  parents  pre-eminently  persons 
of  intense  emotional  interest — an  impression  the 
Unconscious  in  each  one  of  us  never  forgets,  mak- 
ing it,  in  fact,  the  standard  by  which  in  later,  adult 
life  we  form  our  friendships  and  choose  our  help- 
mates. 

The  sex  instinct  appears  at  an  early  period  of 
childhood,  though  parents  and  children  are  not 
aware  of  the  fact.  Little  boys  fall  in  love  with 
their  mothers  quite  unconsciously;  while  little  girls 
cling  to  their  fathers  and  are  jealous  of  their 
mothers.  Recently  a  four-year-old  girl  was  heard 


42     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

to  say,  "Daddy,  when  I  grow  up  I  am  going  to 
marry  you."  Some  days  later  this  child  played 
that  her  mother  was  dead.  The  reason  for  this 
kind  of  play  lies  in  the  Unconscious.  Under  the 
mask  of  this  child's  play  there  was  at  work  a 
primitive  wish  that  her  mother  were  dead  so  that 
she  might  exclusively  enjoy  her  father's  love. 

These  distinct  love  cravings  for  either  parent 
are  known  as  the  "father  and  mother  complex"  or 
"fixations."  They  forever  live  on  in  the  race  and 
manifest  themselves  in  people's  lives  in  unsuspected 
ways.  Thus,  many  a  man  for  no  good  reason  at 
all  cannot  live  happily  with  his  wife  because  it  is 
found  when  his  Unconscious  is  investigated  that 
his  affections  are  still  fixed  on  the  unconscious 
image  of  his  mother  and  that  he  does  not  love  his 
wife  for  the  simple  reason  that  she  is  not  like  his 
mother.  Some  wives  without  knowing  the  signifi- 
cance of  their  thought  belittle  their  husbands  be- 
cause they  still  unconsciously  desire  their  fathers 
in  place  of  their  husbands.  In  a  similar  way  in 
adult  life  when  we  experience  sudden  likes  or  dis- 
likes for  people  we  may  be  sure  that  the  reason  lies 
in  the  fact  that  in  these  people  we  recognize  un- 
consciously some  strong  resemblance  to  certain 
people  in  our  childhood  who  favorably  or  unfavor- 
ably absorbed  our  emotional  attention. 

The  Unconscious  before  it  is  re-educated  must 


The  Unconscious  Mind  43 

bear  the  blame  for  many  more  of  our  infirmities 
in  case  the  normal  mind  is  not  in  complete  control. 
Thus,  innumerable  fears,  which  steal  in  upon  us 
we  know  not  why,  refer  their  origin  back  to  some 
specific  fear  we  experienced  in  childhood. 

The  sense  of  having  committed  the  unpardon- 
able sin,  which  annihilates  so  frequently  the  peace 
of  mind  in  both  young  and  old  people,  may  be  only 
the  exaggerated  echo  of  an  unconscious  memory 
of  some  occasion  when  a  father  in  punishing  his 
child  too  severely  and  perhaps  unjustly  made  the 
child  feel  his  guilt  unduly.  The  unreasonable  com- 
pulsions felt  so  often  in  later  days  may  be  due  to 
a  similar  memory — a  child  from  a  motive  of  fear 
felt  compelled  to  do  something  which  at  the  time 
he  knew  was  unreasonably  required  of  him. 
Morbid  cases  of  compulsion  differ  from  cases  of 
simple  bad  conscience  in  this  one  particular  that 
the  bad  conscience  knows  perfectly  well  why  it  is 
troubled  while  a  morbid  compulsion  can  not  give 
a  single  reason  for  its  insistence. 

But  why  do  fears,  compulsions  and  fixed  ideas 
have  such  sticking,  pertinacious  power?  It  is  be- 
cause their  origin  involved  without  doubt  a  great 
deal  of  emotional  upset.  That  is,  when  the  child 
was  unjustly  punished  or  compelled  to  do  an  un- 
reasonable thing,  the  child's  emotional  life  was 


44     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

thoroughly  roused — his  feelings  were  outraged. 
Then  in  the  course  of  years  the  Unconscious 
avenges  itself  for  this  outrage  by  rebelling  against 
the  control  and  authority  of  the  waking  mind  by 
overclouding  it  with  dark  thoughts  and  moods. 
The  emotional  quality  of  any  memory  guarantees 
the  persistence  of  that  memory  even  though  the 
cause  of  it  all  was  trifling.  Thus,  the  sense  of 
guilt  which  may  overspread  the  whole  mentality 
may  have  had  the  most  insignificant  origin,  but 
the  Unconscious  is  careful  that  the  emotional  ele- 
ment in  any  memory  shall  fasten  to  as  many 
thoughts  as- possible. 

The  fear  of  closed  places  which  numbers  its 
victims  in  large  figures  may  be  only  the  left-over 
fear  first  induced  when  as  children  these  people 
were  detected  in  some  hiding  place  indulging  in 
some  disgusting  or  injurious  practice.  The  wide 
spread  sense  of  inferiority,  of  not  being  equal  to 
the  requirements  and  hardships  of  life  can  be 
traced  usually  to  the  indulgence  of  parents  in  pro- 
tecting their  children  from  responsibilities,  in 
shielding  them  from  unpleasant  facts  and  in  sug- 
gesting to  them  that  they  are  not  capable  of  this 
or  that  task.  The  resentful,  embittered  disposi- 
tions of  older  people  may  owe  their  particular  in- 
tensity to  unconscious  memories  of  childhood  de- 
privations and  disappointments. 


The  Unconscious  Mind  45 

Boys  who  do  not  get  on  well  at  school  frequent- 
ly  show  under  analysis  that  their  trouble  lies  wholly 
in  the  fact  that  they  unconsciously  identify  the 
schoolmaster  with  some  forbidding  parent,  brother 
or  relative  who  domineered  over  them  as  young- 
sters. Many  an  employee  can  not  keep  his  posi- 
tion because  he  sees  in  the  foreman  or  employer 
the  exasperating  image  of  some  earlier  taskmaster. 

Much  of  the  suffering  we  go  through  is  unneces- 
sary; a  little  knowledge  of  our  unconscious  life 
would  at  least  afford  something  definite  for  the 
reason  to  work  on  in  the  matter  of  mitigating  its 
unpleasant  effects.  Thus,  religiously-minded  peo- 
ple are  often  cruelly  scourged  with  a  haunting 
sense  of  God's  wrath  and  the  idea  of  the  Father 
in  Heaven  instead  of  bringing  peace  brings  terror. 
But  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  this  terror 
at  the  thought  of  God  is  only  the  survival  of  a 
race  memory  dating  from  the  time  when  our  very 
primitive  ancestors  killed  their  fathers  and  then 
were  paralyzed  with  a  fear  of  their  fathers'  aveng- 
ing, haunting  spirit. 

In  general,  then,  fears,  anxieties,  depressed 
states  of  feeling,  fixed  ideas  and  compulsions  or 
whatever  else  infests  the  mind  can  be  traced  back 
usually  to  unconscious  memories  of  actual  but  for- 
gotten childhood  experiences  or  to  the  collective 
experience  of  the  human  race  throughout  its  long 


46     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

history  which  continues  to  live  in  the  Unconscious 
of  each  individual.  Such  mental  disorders  are, 
however,  to  a  large  extent  curable.  The  cure  is 
brought  about  by  thoroughly  investigating  and 
analysing  the  afflicted  person's  Unconscious,  by 
drawing  its  memories  out  into  the  light  of  the 
patient's  reason,  by  fulfilling  its  wishes  in  a 
symbolic  way  (known  as  the  "transference")  and 
by  re-educating  its  powers  to  co-operate  with  the 
ideals  of  the  conscious  mind.  How  is  this  done? 
Chiefly  by  analyzing  and  interpreting  the  person's 
dreams. 

The  important  discovery  that  our  dreams  are 
the  life  of  our  Unconscious  was  made  by  Dr. 
Sigmund  Freud.  After  much  scientific  investiga- 
tion, Freud  came  to  the  conclusion  that  our  Un- 
conscious tries  to  fulfill  its  wishes  in  our  dream 
pictures,  that  is,  whatever  we  dream  expresses  the 
fulfillment  of  an  unconscious  wish.  Hence,  if  we 
can  rightly  interpret  the  thought  behind  the  dream 
imagery  we  have  the  key  to  what  memories  and 
wishes  are  predominant  in  our  unconscious  souls. 
Dreams,  then,  are  often  the  clue  to  the  uncon- 
scious wish  which  for  lack  of  fulfillment  is  caus- 
ing a  nervous  disturbance. 

While  it  may  seem  for  the  most  part  that  our 
dreams  center  about  people,  scenes,  and  incidents 
of  our  immediate,  present  life,  yet  behind  these 


The  Unconscious  Mind  47 

dream  presentations  of  people  and  situations, 
which  we  recognize  as  part  of  our  modern  life, 
there  are  also  the  people  of  our  childhood  and 
childhood  incidents  faithfully  preserved,  but  so 
disguised  that  we  do  not  recognize  them.  Thus, 
our  dreams,  without  our  knowing  it,  live  over 
and  over  again  our  childhood  emotions  and  wishes 
which  still  powerfully  influence  us  because  they 
were  once  of  intense  emotional  interest  to  us. 
Dreams,  then,  are  our  own  ancient  and  modern 
history.  But  at  present  we  are  concerned  only 
with  those  features  of  dream  life  which  reveal 
the  secret  cause  of  this  or  that  nervous  disorder. 

Let  us  suppose  for  the  sake  of  example  that  a 
man  is  not  happy  in  his  home  and  the  fault  seems 
to  be  due  entirely  to  his  peculiar  childish  tempera- 
ment. At  length  he  goes  to  some  competent  Re- 
educator  (either  a  nerve  specialist  or  clergy- 
man) and  places  himself  under  his  care.  What 
does  the  Re-educator  do?  In  particular,  besides 
trying  several  other  approaches  to  the  man's  inner 
life,  he  will  analyze  his  dreams  for  in  them  there 
must  be  some  hint  of  where  the  trouble  originated. 
The  dreams,  we  will  say,  show  quite  clearly  that 
the  man  had  never  detached  himself  from  his  boy- 
hood home,  that  is,  his  unconscious  mind  was  still 
living  among  its  earliest  affections.  The  first 
thing  the  Re-educator  will  do  is  to  point  out  this 


48     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

fact  to  his  patient.  If  the  patient  is  satisfied  that 
the  Re-educator  has  unearthed  the  real  cause  of 
his  unhappiness  the  probability  is  that  the  patient's 
unconscious  mind  will  cease  to  hold  him  in  bond- 
age. That  is,  when  the  real  reason  is  discovered 
for  this  or  that  nervous  disorder  then  its  power 
to  hinder  the  waking  mind  tends  almost  at  once 
to  disappear.  This  means  that  the  strong  feel- 
ing of  affection  which  the  man  felt  for  his  old 
home  frees  itself  when  once  exposed  to  his  reason- 
ing power  and  attaches  itself  to  the  man's  present 
home.  The  emotional  power  transfers  itself  out 
of  the  past  into  the  present;  it  no  longer  with- 
holds the  man  from  loving  his  wife  and  children 
but  actually  strengthens  his  new  emotion. 

What  the  Re-educator  does  is  to  discover 
through  the  analysis  of  dreams  just  where  the 
trouble  originated  in  the  patient's  childhood.  The 
next  step  is  to  present  this  fact  to  the  patient's 
reason  and  then  by  using  suggestion  the  Re-educa- 
tor directs  the  emotional  force,  which  was  asso- 
ciated with  the  childhood  days,  to  pass  over  into 
an  enthusiasm  for  the  patient's  present  activities. 

Were  we  to  consider  the  case  of  a  fear  or  a 
compulsion  the  method  of  procedure  would  be 
the  same.  The  Re-educator  would  first  investi- 
gate what  was  the  original  fear  or  what  was  the 
original  thing  which  the  -child  had  to  do  which 


The  Unconscious  Mind  49 

later  when  he  became  an  adult  assumed  the  per- 
sistent character  of  a  fear  or  compulsion.  Sooner 
or  later  in  the  investigation,  the  dream  pictures 
will  dramatize  the  scene  in  which  long  since  the 
fear  or  the  compulsion  began  its  work  of  trying 
to  becloud  the  patient's  whole  mentality.  The 
Unconscious  has  never  forgotten  the  scene  be- 
cause of  the  explosive,  emotional  element  which 
was  originally  connected  with  it.  This  emotional 
element  lives  on  and  on  and  is  the  cause  of  the 
fear  or  the  compulsion.  But  this  emotional  ele- 
ment loses  its  disturbing  force  just  as  soon  as  it 
has  been  traced  to  its  source.  We  have  only  to 
remember  how  long  it  takes  injured  feelings  to 
cool  down  to  obtain  some  adequate  notion  of  the 
way  early  emotional  tempests  continue  to  rage  in 
the  unconscious  mind. 

But  our  emphasis  at  this  point  is  on  the  readi- 
ness with  which  an  imprisoned  emotion  transfers 
itself  outward  to  new  interests.  Just  as  we  may 
rapidly  forget  personal  injuries  as  soon  as  an 
adequate  explanation  has  been  offered  so  the  un- 
conscious feelings  cease  to  be  self-centered  and 
naturally  align  themselves  with  the  forward 
movement  of  the  normal,  waking  mind  as  soon  as 
they  have  been  satisfied  with  a  reasonable  explana- 
tion. They  so  frequently  right  themselves  auto- 
matically after  but  one  or  two  visits  to  the  Re- 


50     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

educator  that  he  has  no  need  to  use  applied  sug- 
gestion to  train  them  in  the  way  they  should  flow ; 
they  naturally  betake  themselves  along  the  proper 
channels.  But  we  must  now  consider  the  essential 
feature  in  every  childhood,  emotional  experience. 

The  pre-eminently  vital  feature  in  each  child- 
hood incident  was,  of  course,  the  people  for  whom 
the  child  had  a  feeling  of  hate  or  love.  Every 
fear,  compulsion  or  fixed  idea  or  whatever  may 
be  morbid  in  an  adult's  mind  originated  in  his 
emotional  attitude  toward  some  definite  person  or 
persons  connected  with  his  earliest  days.  It  was 
probably  his  father  or  mother  or  brother  or  sis- 
ter or  nurse  who  gave  the  troublesome  incident  its 
emotional  character  which  the  Unconscious  strives 
to  be  rid  of.  This  is  an  important  fact  and  hence 
in  dream  analysis  when  the  cause  of  a  nervous 
disorder  reveals  itself  these  inevitable  persons 
make  their  appearance  as  the  object  of  the  child's 
hate  or  love.  In  his  Unconscious,  the  adult  is  still 
a  child  and  he  wishes  to  show  his  hatred  or  ex- 
press his  love,  as  the  case  may  be,  to  those  with 
whom  he  once  lived  long  ago. 

It  follows,  then,  that  a  large  part  of  re-educat- 
ing a  person's  Unconscious  consists  in  establishing 
a  normal  relationship  between  him  and  his  child- 
hood associates.  Probably  they  are  people  who 
are  actually  dead  or  far  distant,  but  for  the  per- 


The  Unconscious  Mind  51 

son's  Unconscious  they  are  still  alive.  Toward 
them  he  still  has  definite  though  unconscious 
wishes  and  for  his  cure  these  wishes  must  be  ful- 
filled, be  they  wishes  inspired  by  hatred  or  love. 
The  fulfillment  of  these  wishes  devolves 
upon  the  Re-educator.  He  must  stand  as 
the  symbol  and  substitute  for  all  the  people 
on  whom  the  patient  wishes  unconsciously 
to  lavish  his  love  or  vent  his  spite.  In 
a  word,  the  patient  simply  "transfers"  his  long- 
imprisoned  feeling  for  parents,  brothers,  sisters, 
and  relatives  over  to  the  Re-educator.  He  in  one 
capacity  or  another  satisfies  the  patient's  hate  or 
love  wishes.  The  "transference"  of  feeling  seems 
to  be  a  necessary  part  of  the  cure.  It  is  perhaps 
this  fact  which  explains  why  the  people  possessed 
with  devils  cried  out  to  Christ  to  leave  them  alone, 
while  others  manifested  to  Him  their  most  ardent 
affection.  Anyone  who  has  tried  to  be  of  help 
to  a  person  who  was  in  a  "state  of  nerves"  will 
recall  with  what  ease  the  person's  moods  would 
alternate  from  intense  affection  to  abhorence,  the 
reason  being  that  the  person  without  doubt  un- 
consciously recognized  in  his  friend  now  some- 
body he  once  loved  and  in  the  next  moment  some- 
body he  once  hated  as  a  child.  In  every  friend- 
ship there  is  always  some  evidence  of  "transfer- 
ence" ;  either  one  of  the  friends  sees  in  the  other 


52     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

or  both  friends  see  in  each  other  some  quality 
or  trait  which  belonged  to  the  first  persons  they 
were  unusually  fond  of. 

No  one  should  long  be  surprised  or  foster  dis- 
gust on  account  of  this  transference.  If  it  is 
necessary  for  you  to  be  under  the  care  of  some 
Re-educator  you  may  feel  confident  that  he  has 
no  personal  interest  in  whatever  transference  you 
may  make  to  him.  The  Re-educator  knows  that 
for  a  limited  time  he  must  stand  in  the  eyes  of 
your  unconscious  mind  for  a  host  of  people,  it 
may  be  for  your  father,  your  mother,  your 
brother,  your  sister,  or  nurse,  in  fact,  for  any 
person  connected  with  your  earliest  years.  You 
observe  there  is  nothing  very  personal  or  of 
emotional  interest  in  this  matter  of  momentarily 
taking  somebody  else's  place.  When  without  your 
knowing  it  the  Re-educator  observes  that  you  di- 
rect your  anger  or  affection  toward  him,  his  only 
interest  is  in  the  fact  that  you  are  giving  way  to 
the  transference  which  unconsciously  you  wish  to 
make  in  order  that  henceforth  you  may  be  free 
from  the  pressure  of  this  or  that  long  repressed 
emotion.  The  love,  the  friendship,  the  hatred 
and  disgust  which  your  Unconscious  has  long  since 
desired  to  express  toward  certain  people  eventual- 
ly finds  in  the  Re-educator  a  satisfactory  though 
momentary  substitute. 


The   Unconscious  Mind  53 

The  "transference"  does  not  last  long  for  the 
emotion  a  patient  feels  for  the  Re-educator  usually 
passes  on  rapidly  to  some  person,  interest,  or  situa- 
tion for  which  he  has  a  natural  leaning  and  de- 
sire. 

The  "transference"  is  the  bridge  over  which 
the  imprisoned  emotional  energy  passes  out  into 
an  emotional  interest  in  the  contemporary  world. 
The  "transference"  usually  serves  also  as  a  rapid 
means  by  which  the  infantile,  unconscious  wishes 
and  impulses  transform  themselves  into  support- 
ing forces  of  the  grown-up  personality.  Because 
his  infantile  emotional  nature  was  not  properly 
transformed  but  remained  stunted,  many  a  bril- 
liant man  has  had  to  write  himself  down  as  a 
failure. 

So  far  we  have  considered  the  Unconscious  as 
a  prison  for  infantile  emotional  energy,  but  it  is 
also  the  prison  for  all  the  emotional  energy  which 
throughout  our  lives  we  consign  to  its  keeping. 
This  brings  us  to  the  important  subject  of  re- 
pression. Every  day  we  have  to  make  moral  de- 
cisions; we  have  to  choose  between  two  or  more 
impulses  and  while  we  naturally  follow  some  of 
them  out  completely  there  are  many  we  have  to 
repress.  These  repressed  impulses  and  desires 
simply  withdraw  into  the  Unconscious  where  they 
continue  to  strive  for  expression. 


54     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

Many  of  these  repressed  impulses  are  moral 
and  wholesome,  but  we  can  not  follow  them  out 
perhaps  on  account  of  our  financial  inability  or 
our  education  and  training  do  not  sanction  them, 
or  the  conventions  of  our  community  intimidate 
us.  At  any  rate  they  are  forced  into  the  limbo  of 
the  Unconscious  where  they  stir  up  resentful  and 
rebellious  moods.  Time  and  time  and  again  a 
thorough  re-education  of  a  person's  nervous  sys- 
tem means  not  only  that  these  repressions  must  be 
ferreted  out  by  analysis,  but  that  the  person  must 
be  urged  to  express  them  completely.  A  too  puri- 
tanical way  of  looking  at  life  often  results  in  years 
of  repression  and  consequently  in  years  of  nerv- 
ous trouble  which  is  the  only  way  the  repressed 
impulses  can  compensate  themselves.  Adults  who 
for  years  have  lived  with  parental  warnings  and 
promptings  ringing  in  their  ears  need  to  be  freed 
and  re-educated.  In  this  connection  it  is  reassur- 
ing to  know  that  as  soon  as  dream  analysis  or  any 
other  means  of  soul  analysis  reveals  these  repres- 
sive commands  in  their  injurious  aspect  they  tend 
to  lose  their  force. 

We  have  been  thinking  of  the  Unconscious  in 
its  character  as  a  child,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this 
characteristic  contains  within  it  the  brute  and 
coward  aspects  of  the  Unconscious.  The  brutal 
side  of  the  Unconscious,  however,  is  not  particular- 


The  Unconscious  Mind  55 

ly  evident  though  in  moments  of  revery  we  may 
suddenly  surprise  ourselves  by  imagining  or  wish- 
ing that  certain  brutal  things  might  happen.  The 
brutal  characteristic  shows  itself  oftenest  in  the 
things  we  do  in  our  dreams  or  the  disguised  death 
wishes  we  unconsciously  entertain.  Anyone  who 
is  familiar  with  little  children  must  have  noticed 
how  they  at  time  give  way  to  the  most  barbaric 
sentiments  or  dramatize  symbolically  in  their  play 
decidedly  brutal  incidents.  The  Unconscious  as 
a  coward,  however,  is  less  capable  of  disguising 
itself.  We  are  all  greatly  influenced  by  the  uncon- 
scious desire  for  safety. 

With  this  motive  for  safety  in  mind,  we  can 
undoubtedly  call  to  mind  certain  people  of  our 
acquaintance  who  like  children  shrink  from  re- 
sponsibility and  hide  behind  every  kind  of  an  ex- 
cuse. Such  people  make  up  the  large  number 
whose  neurotic  symptoms  take  the  form  of  fleeing 
from  reality.  The  flight  from  reality  is  a  distinct 
form  of  mental  disorder.  Back  of  it  is  probably 
the  wish  to  regress  and  hide  among  the  memories 
of  a  protected  and  care-free  childhood.  This  mo- 
tive for  safety  may  be  the  unconscious  origin  of 
this  or  that  form  of  bodily  sickness.  Thus,  if 
once  as  a  child  by  feigning  sickness  a  person  was 
able  to  shirk  some  duty  or  salutary  discipline,  it 
might  easily  happen  that  his  Unconscious  which 


56      Religions  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

could  never  forget  such  a  successful  evasion,  would 
resort  to  exactly  the  same  method  if  the  person 
were  confronted  with  some  difficult  situation. 
This  person,  let  us  imagine,  knows  definitely  that 
he  must  do  something  not  at  all  to  his  liking.  This 
fact  revives  the  unconscious  memory  of  his  child- 
hood success  in  evading  the  unpleasant  and  im- 
mediately the  Unconscious  attempts  to  gain  con- 
trol of  his  bodily  functions  and  throw  them  into 
disorder.  Then  for  no  conceivable  reason  he  be- 
comes ill  and  for  a  time  at  least  is  physically  un- 
able to  deal  with  the  difficulty  he  must  needs  meet. 
We  are  assuming  that  he  did  not  deliberately  make 
himself  ill  but  he  had  the  safety  motive  so  little 
under  normal  control  that  it  easily  induced  the 
incapacitating  illness.  Many  a  person  is  inhibited 
from  living  the  broad  and  daring  life  which  his 
gifts  and  talents  warrant,  because  of  the  pressure 
of  the  safety  motive. 

The  safety  motive  has  under  the  conditions  of 
war  been  one  of  the  factors  in  shellshock  cases. 
The  soldier,  in  his  waking,  conscious  mind,  cher- 
ishes ideals  of  bravery  and  endurance,  but  if  the 
wearing  terrors  of  war  or  the  sudden,  near-by 
bursting  of  a  shell  happens  to  demoralize  or  ren- 
der the  faculties  of  his  conscious  mind  temporarily 
powerless  to  control  the  Unconscious,  the  Uncon- 
scious in  accordance  with  its  wish  to  be  safe  is  at 


The  Unconscious  Mind  57 

once  free  to  incapacitate  the  soldier's  bodily 
organism  by  inducing  blindness,  deafness,  loss  of 
voice  or  paralysis.  These  afflictions  tend  to  dis- 
appear, however,  as  soon  as  the  normal  control 
of  the  idealistic,  conscious  mind  is  re-established 
under  proper  treatment.  Then,  of  course,  besides 
warshock  we  have  the  slower  breaking  down  of 
this  healthy  control  by  the  tedious,  nerve-wrack- 
ing circumstances  and  hardships  of  life  which  per- 
mit the  Unconscious  to  come  forward  with  what- 
ever neurotic  symptom  it  is  disposed  to. 

Further,  every  nervous  disorder  follows  the 
thrust  of  the  safety  motive,  that  is,  every  nervous 
disorder  wishes  to  be  safe  and  therefore  dreads 
the  possibility  of  being  cured.  The  nervous 
affliction,  as  it  were,  has  a  will  to  live.  For  this 
reason  the  Unconscious  resists  the  various  methods 
for  penetrating  into  its  lair.  It  seems  sometimes 
as  if  the  nervous  disorders  tried  to  falsify  the 
real  meaning  of  the  dreams  which  dramatize  them 
so  that  no  clue  may  appear  as  to  their  existence. 
Fortunately,  nervous  disorders,  by  the  very  fact 
that  they  try  to  intrench  themselves  in  every  pos- 
sible symptom,  are  bound  to  leave  unprotected 
some  way  of  approach  to  their  source  and  origin. 

Self-protection  is  also  a  strong  motive  with 
the  conscious  mind,  but  in  this  case  the  motive 


58      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

for  safety  is  a  desirable  thing  indeed  because  it 
strengthens  our  morale  and  gives  us  hope,  in  case 
we  are  nervously  ill,  to  know  that  the  controlling 
mental  faculty  which  holds  the  Unconscious  in 
check  is  itself  determined  to  keep  us  efficient  and 
sufficiently  healthy  to  meet  the  requirements  of  a 
competitive  world.  This  guarding  faculty  of  the 
mind  so  zealous  for  our  mental  and  moral  health 
is  of  enough  importance  to  consider  under  a  sepa- 
rate section.  We  have,  therefore,  more  to  learn 
about  the  Unconscious,  but  it  will  be  the  Uncon- 
scious as  it  is  regulated  by  that  faculty  of  the  con- 
scious mind  called  the  "Censor." 

While  we  have  noticed  the  reluctance  which  the 
Unconscious  shows  if  any  attempt  is  made  to 
unearth  its  morbid  secrets,  yet  strangely  enough 
when  left  to  its  own  impulses  it  shows  a  strong 
desire  to  talk  about  itself.  That  is,  there  is  some- 
where in  the  mental  make-up  an  innate  desire  to 
obtain  relief  from  any  kind  of  emotional  pressure 
by  speaking  it  aloud.  This  is  the  basic  reason  for 
the  age-long  practice  of  going  to  a  priest  to  con- 
fess one's  sins.  While,  without  doubt  such  a  prac- 
tice brings  relief  when  the  penitent  is  fully  and 
unmistakably  aware  of  what  is  troubling  his  con- 
science, yet,  when  his  trouble  is  of  a  psychological 
and  unconscious  character,  confession  can  bring 


The  Unconscious  Mind  59 

relief  only  to  the  extent  that  it  satisfies  the  blind 
impulse  to  confess  something.  As  a  rule,  the  priest 
who  hears  confessions  is  quite  capable  of  distin- 
guishing between  a  conscience  which  accuses  itself 
justly  and  one  which  is  merely  morbid.  The 
science  of  psycho-analysis,  however,  might  very 
well  in  the  future  play  more  and  more  of  a  part 
in  the  educational  equipment  of  the  men  who  are 
to  hear  confessions. 

Most  of  the  conversations  which  a  Pastor  has 
with  members  of  his  congregation,  when  the  sub- 
ject turns  upon  the  secret  problems  of  their  lives, 
are  veritable  forms  of  confession,  and  scientifically 
nothing  helps  the  nervous  patient  so  much  as  a  per- 
fectly frank  talk  with  somebody  who  understands. 
Conversations  which  have  as  their  object  the 
clearing  up  of  some  thing  which  troubles  the  mind 
are  a  part  of  the  method  for  investigating  the  Un- 
conscious. While  dream  analysis  is  the  most 
scientific  way,  yet  very  frequently  the  information 
which  a  patient  divulges  in  a  conversation  will  af- 
ford enlightening  hints  as  to  the  trouble  in  his  Un- 
conscious. The  patient's  choice  of  words,  his  slips 
of  the  tongue,  his  lapses  of  memory,  his  probably 
unconscious  gestures  are  apt  to  tell  a  great  deal 
more  than  he  thinks,  because  while  he  is  really 
trying  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  his  trouble,  his 
Unconscious  is  trying  to  resist  giving  any  vital  in- 


60     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

formation.  It  is  the  conflict  between  the  con- 
scious desire  to  tell  and  the  unconscious  reluctance 
to  give  away  secrets  which  produces  all  the  uneven- 
ness  of  manner  and  imperfections  of  speech  which 
for  the  competent  Re-educator  are  just  so  many 
guide-posts  into  the  realms  of  the  patient's  Un- 
conscious. We  shall  meet  this  phase  of  the  sub- 
ject again  in  our  consideration  of  the  Censor  in 
the  next  section. 

Nervous  disorders  originate  in  the  Unconscious 
— this  fact  we  take  now  for  granted — but  while 
we  have  familiarized  ourselves  with  the  thought 
that  it  is  the  childhood  "fixations,"  repressions  and 
unfulfilled  wishes  which  cause  us  fears,  fixed  ideas 
and  compulsions,  yet  the  repressed  wishes  and  im- 
pulses of  later  years  can  cause  much  mental  dis- 
turbance. This  is  true  especially  when  the  Un- 
conscious has  a  repressed  moral  problem  of  our 
own  making  which  it  would  like  to  have  cleared 
up  and  banished. 

A  moral  cause,  then,  of  our  own  making  yet 
utterly  forgotten  may  lie  at  the  bottom  of  some 
queer  symptom  as,  for  instance,  a  person's  in- 
ability to  board  a  street  car  or  enter  an  elevator. 
Let  us  suppose  that  a  man  has  an  unreasonable 
dread  of  street  traffic.  It  is  an  evasive,  general 
sort  of  fear  but  it  may  go  back  to  a  definite  inci- 
dent. The  victim  of  this  fear  submits  himself  to 
psycho-analysis.  His  dreams  are  examined  and 


The  Unconscious  Mind  61 

while  they,  of  course,  refer  to  some  childhood  in- 
cident, yet  they  have  a  more  modern  meaning 
which  is  the  one  to  be  interpreted.  His  dreams, 
we  will  suppose,  dramatize  a  theft.  By  continued 
analysis  and  the  conversational  method,  his  Un- 
conscious reveals  that  this  man  in  his  eighteenth 
year  stole  some  money  and  escaped  out  of  town 
on  a  bicycle.  At  the  time,  this  youth  repressed 
his  bad  conscience,  glossed  over  his  guilt  and  be- 
fore long  his  waking  memory  forgot  the  whole  in- 
cident. But  for  years  and  years  his  Unconscious 
had  this  moral  problem  to  deal  with  until  suddenly 
it  was  able  to  indicate  its  existence  by  making  the 
now  grown  man  afraid  to  cross  a  street.  Why 
the  fear  of  crossing  a  street?  Because  any  street 
meant  the  probable  appearance  of  a  bicycle  and  a 
bicycle  stirred  his  Unconscious  with  unpleasant 
memories  of  the  long  forgotten  theft.  Dream 
analysis,  when  it  happens  to  unearth  forgotten 
sins  which  still  live  on  with  hair-trigger  irritability 
in  the  Unconscious,  often  reveals  why  people  are 
addicted  to  drugs  or  alcohol  which  are  not  really, 
in  many  instances,  pleasurable  to  the  victims  of 
them  but  are  a  means  for  relieving  the  emotional 
pressure  exerted  on  their  conscious  mind  by  some 
hidden  plague  spot  of  long  standing,  some  ancient 
sin  or  some  more  recent  problem.  Any  injurious 
habit,  therefore,  suggests  the  advisability  of  dis- 
covering what  unconscious  sense  of  guilt,  what 


62     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

motive  for  fleeing  from  reality  or  what  particular 
childhood  "fixations"  are  irritating  the  waking 
mind.  When  we  realize  how  easily  a  problem 
left  unsolved  at  the  time  of  its  first  appearance 
may,  after  incubating  in  the  Unconscious,  resur- 
rect itself  in  the  form  of  a  deleterious  habit  or 
neurotic  symptom,  we  see  how  important  is  the 
first  great  command  in  the  method  of  self-treat- 
ment: Face  fairly  and  squarely  at  the  beginning 
anything  which  troubles  the  mind;  meet  it  with 
poise  and  discriminating  judgment  and  at  the  end 
of  each  day  take  stock  of  the  emotional  problems 
of  the  preceding  hours. 

In  the  light  of  what  the  Unconscious  is,  it  were 
well  to  revert  to  the  subject  of  self-suggestion. 
Self-suggestion  is  not  so  much  a  curing  process  as 
a  means  to  magnificent  self-control  over  one's  Un- 
conscious. The  Unconscious  is  ever  ready  to 
break  in  with  its  queer  moods,  thoughts  and  ac- 
tions so  that  a  constant  vigilance  is  necessary 
which  itself  may  turn  into  a  well-defined  fear  as 
to  whether  we  will  be  able  to  maintain  sufficient 
control  or  not.  In  those  instances  of  nervous  dis- 
order where  self-suggestion  and  prayer  have 
brought  permanent  peace  and  influenced  their  self- 
conscious  and  introspective  thought  to  assume  its 
naturally  secondary  place,  the  explanation  must 
be  that  the  afflicted  persons  were  able  to  hold  out 
against  the  Unconscious  and  its  invasions  long 


The  Unconscious  Mind  63 

enough  to  allow  the  Censor  to  make  the  proper 
adjustments  between  their  conscious  and  uncon- 
scious minds.  One  hesitates  in  any  way  to  hint 
at  the  actual  limits  of  self-suggestion  in  the  face 
of  all  the  good  it  has  accomplished  for  scores  of 
people,  yet  if  self-suggestion  is  too  exhausting  and 
self-conscious  a  process,  the  sufferer  from  fears 
and  other  nervous  symptoms  would  do  well  to 
have  his  Unconscious  analyzed  and  re-educated. 
Such  a  procedure  might  easily  be  the  means  of 
heading  off  any  incipient  insanity.  When  one 
comes  to  examine  his  own  mental  state,  one  needs 
to  use  common  sense  first  and  last,  for  it  is  an 
easy  matter  to  distort  one's  prespective  and  be- 
come morbid  over  some  fancied  weakness  or 
shadowy  sense  of  guilt.  One  can  be  considerably 
neurotic  without  serious  detriment  to  one's  work 
or  happiness  and  it  needs  to  be  remembered  that 
the  Unconscious  is  neither  good  nor  bad  in  itself; 
it  is  only  what  one  allows  it  to  become  which  de- 
termines its  character.  We  have  seen  that  one 
may  train  the  Unconscious  to  serve  one's  energies; 
the  thing  to  be  guarded  against  is  any  countenanc- 
ing of  its  irrational  outbursts,  or  any  habitual  ac- 
quiescence in  its  retrograde  wishes  and  fixations. 
What  we  know  of  the  Unconscious  and  of  the 
need,  in  so  many  instances,  of  re-education  enables 
us  to  estimate  correctly  the  use  of  applied  sug- 
gestion as  the  Re-educator  practices  it.  As  a  mat- 


64      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

ter  of  fact,  everything  the  Re-educator  does  or 
says  has  a  quality  of  suggestion  about  it  and  he  re- 
sorts to  definite  suggestion  (the  patient  having 
first  been  relaxed)  only  when  the  analyzed  person- 
ality is  backward  in  righting  itself.  When  the  Re- 
educator  discovers  that  an  impulse  tends  to  re- 
cede into  its  infantile  state,  he  uses  applied  sug- 
gestion to  turn  the  impulse  outward  and  forward. 
If,  for  instance,  he  finds  that  in  her  Unconscious 
a  woman  turns  from  her  husband  back  to  an  in- 
fantile desire  for  her  father,  the  Re-educator,  in 
case  after  the  analysis  the  woman  does  not  turn 
spontaneously  to  her  husband,  will  use  applied 
suggestion  as  a  possible  means  for  securing  the 
desired  result. 

Again,  when  a  patient's  dream  life  is  meager 
and  void  of  information,  the  Re-educator  may  by 
using  suggestion  often  induce  him  to  recall  events 
and  people  which  supplement  the  facts  which  the 
dreams  withhold.  People  of  extraordinarily  shut- 
in  personality  under  suggestion  frequently  become 
communicative  and  enlightening  as  to  their 
trouble.  Applied  suggestion  by  the  Re-educator, 
on  the  contrary,  may  be  useful  in  quieting  a  per- 
son sufficiently,  so  that  he  is  able  to  concentrate  his 
attention  on  what  he  desires  to  tell. 

We  have,  then,  three  methods  for  penetrating 
into  a  person's  Unconscious :  dream  analysis,  ordi- 
nary conversations  and  directed  suggestion.  It  is 


The  Unconscious  Mind  65 

evident  that  the  "patient"  cannot  employ  these 
methods  by  himself,  though  some  people  become 
proficient  in  interpreting  their  own  dreams.  It, 
therefore,  becomes  necessary  for  the  Re-educator 
to  use  all  the  rational  methods  he  knows  for  ascer- 
taining the  mysterious  life  which  the  Unconscious 
leads  below  the  threshhold  of  conscious  thought. 
We  have  said  nothing  of  the  use  of  hypnotism,  for 
while  that  was  once  a  recognized  method  it  has 
been  largely  displaced  by  dream  analysis.  If  un- 
der hypnotism  a  patient  was  asked  to  give  infor- 
mation about  a  certain  fact  in  his  life  he  would 
undoubtedly  do  so,  but  it  would  be  only  the  bare, 
unrelated  fact.  The  methods  now  in  use  not  only 
obtain  the  specific  information  but  also  a  mass  of 
related  ideas  and  emotions  which  are  fully  as  im- 
portant. 

Furthermore,  this  style  of  method,  which  se- 
cures also  the  associated  ideas  as  well  as  the 
principal  idea  itself  connected  with  the  trouble  to 
be  treated,  usually  awakens  the  patient's  interest 
in  the  results  and  moves  him  not  only  to  assist  in 
the  analysis  and  interpretation  of  his  Unconscious 
but  to  manifest  an  enthusiasm  which  hastens  his 
complete  re-education,  that  is,  the  turning  of  his 
Unconscious  away  from  its  own  self-consuming 
life  to  a  ready  co-operation  with  the  problems  and 
purposes  of  the  moral  and  conscious  mind. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  INTERNAL  CENSOR  AND  GUARDIAN 

WE  call  that  mental  faculty  the  Censor  which 
is  set  as  a  guardian  of  our  sanity  and  be- 
havior. The  Censor  has  two  things  to  do :  ( I ) 
to  shield  us  from  the  injurious  effects  of  external 
circumstances,  and  (2)  to  protect  us  from  the 
irrational  efforts  of  our  Unconscious  to  gain  con- 
trol of  our  thoughts,  feelings,  speech,  actions  and 
of  our  motor  organism  as  a  whole.  Hence  any 
discussion  of  the  Unconscious,  or  any  understand- 
ing of  the  connection  between  the  Unconscious  and 
our  conscious,  civilized,  mind  requires  at  least  a 
glance  at  the  Censor.  Moreover,  because  it  in- 
cludes our  faculties  of  conscience,  we  have  to  con- 
sider the  Censor  in  any  intelligent  view  of  the  sub- 
ject of  religion  in  its  relation  to  the  cure  of  nerv- 
ous ills  and  the  re-education  of  human  personality. 
The  Censor  usually  does  his  work  well.  This 
is  the  same  thing  as  saying  that  the  conscious  mind 
always  tends  to  preserve  or  regain  its  equilibrium 
and  control  the  nervous  system.  In  fact  while  we 
are  young  and  untroubled  we  give  the  Censor  no 

66 


The  Internal  Censor  and  Guardian         67 

thought  because  it  works  so  smoothly  that  it  at- 
tracts no  attention  to  itself.  It  is  only  as  the 
Censor  slowly  becomes  worn  down  that  we  realize 
its  importance. 

In  our  relation  to  a  world  of  people  and  things 
and  noise,  the  Censor  guards  our  peace  of  mind 
by  sifting  our  experiences  as  they  come  to  us  and 
by  allowing  only  such  elements  to  attract  our  at- 
tention as  will  tend  to  suffuse  us  with  a  sense  of 
well-being.  Take,  for  instance,  as  simple  a  mat- 
ter as  sitting  down  in  cold  blood  and  deliberately 
trying  to  solve  some  of  the  knotty  problems  of 
philosophy  and  life.  No  matter  with  what  in- 
tellectual calm  we  might  approach  them,  such 
problems,  were  we  allowed  for  a  moment  to  feel 
their  terror  and  immensity,  would  certainly  over- 
whelm us  with  a  depressing  sense  of  the  futility 
of  human  life,  but  the  Censor  sees  to  it  that  we 
not  only  fail  to  appreciate  their  terror  and  im- 
mensity but  that  we  actually  experience  an  in- 
tellectual pleasure  in  our  philosophizing.  This 
means  that  the  Censor  guards  our  emotional  calm. 
Thus,  in  associating  with  people,  the  Censor  fore- 
stalls our  feeling  in  too  oppressive  a  way  the 
slights,  the  indifference  and  the  competition  which 
every  person  in  some  degree  must  have  in  store 
for  us.  On  the  contrary,  the  Censor  allows  us 


68     Religions  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

chiefly  to  feel  only  the  advantages  of  associating 
with  our  fellows. 

If  it  were  not  for  the  Censor's  guarding  our 
sympathetic  feelings,  our  emotional  nature  would 
be  continually  lacerated  by  the  sight  of  every 
beggar,  cripple  or  unfortunate  on  the  streets.  We 
are,  of  course,  naturally  sympathetic  but  not  nearly 
so  much  so  as  the  constant  challenge  of  poverty, 
sickness,  vice  and  crime  would  warrant.  This  be- 
comes apparent  immediately  whenever  the  Censor 
weakens  its  control,  for  then,  because  there  is 
nothing  to  prevent  the  full  emotional  significance 
of  the  outside  world  from  streaming  in,  many  peo- 
ple are  made  helplessly  miserable  by  the  width  and 
intensity  of  their  sympathy  with  the  sufferings  of 
men  and  animals.  Such  uncensored  sympathy  is 
actually  injurious  because  it  paralyses  a  person's 
power  to  do  anything  for  the  relief  of  suffering. 
No  one  person  is  competent  to  alleviate  all  the 
misery  he  sees  and  the  Censor,  by  narrowing  the 
intake  of  our  feeling  for  others,  enables  us  to  save 
some  portion  of  our  vitality  for  actually  helping 
others. 

Again,  the  clamorous  busy  world  would  wrack 
us  beyond  recovery  but  the  Censor  softens  the  ef- 
fect of  street  cries,  the  noise  of  traffic  and  the 
babel  of  tongues;  what  really  happens  is  that  we 


The  Internal  Censor  and  Guardian         69 

are  not  allowed  to  pay  attention  to  them.  The 
Censor  is,  therefore,  the  guardian  of  the  attention. 
That  the  outside  world's  insufferable  irritants  are 
ever  at  work,  we  would  soon  learn  to  our  sorrow 
if  by  mischance  the  censorship  was  withdrawn. 

Then,  too,  in  the  matter  of  memory,  how  many 
unpleasant,  difficult  situations  we  have  at  some 
time  struggled  through  lose  the  poignancy  of  their 
horror  when  we  recall  them  to  memory!  Their 
full .  shattering  effect  is  still  a  living  memory  in 
our  Unconscious  and  under  hypnotism  we  could 
be  made  to  feel  their  original  unpleasantness  and 
terror,  but  in  normal  health  the  Censor  more  and 
more  strikes  out  the  painful  elements  from  our 
recollections.  Thus,  the  Censor  strives  to  elimi- 
nate the  emotional  element  from  our  memories  as 
being  an  injurious  factor. 

Again,  we  may  hear  of  some  heart-breaking 
news  and  the  Censor  immediately  stuns  our  sen- 
sibilities. It  is  the  stunning  of  our  sensibilities 
which  saves  our  reason  by  permitting' us  to  take 
in  only  very  gradually  as  we  are  able  to  endure  it, 
the  otherwise  crushing  significance  of  the  death 
or  tragedy  which  has  affected  us.  If  we  suffer  a 
reverse  of  fortune  or  are  called  on  to  live  in 
strange,  uncongenial  surroundings,  the  Censor  as 
far  as  possible  glosses  over  the  misfortunes  and 
shuts  out  the  destructive  sense  of  strangeness  in 


70      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

order  that  we  may  adjust  ourselves  to  the  new 
conditions. 

The  Censor  also  guards  our  sleep.  Dreams 
tend  to  waken  us  but  the  Censor  is  constantly 
modifying  the  dream  pictures  so  that  even  if  they 
are  unusually  vivid  and  intense  they  do  not  as  a 
rule  disturb  the  conscious  mind  during  its  repose. 
Here  is  an  important  item  in  the  analysis  of 
dreams;  why  is  it  that  at  this  or  that  point  the 
Censor  stepped  in  and  changed  the  series  of  dream 
pictures?  At  night,  however,  the  Censor  is  at  its 
weakest  and  frequently  dream  pictures  slip  by  of 
such  a  thrilling  or  horrid  character  that  they 
waken  us.  Nevertheless,  the  vital  meaning  of 
the  dream  is  always  too  carefully  obscured  by  the 
Censor  for  us  to  be  conscious  of  it  at  the  time. 

Our  dreams  in  some  instances  would  certainly 
shock  and  astound  us  if  we  knew  their  meaning; 
for  the  dream  life  just  because  it  acts  out  and 
dramatizes  the  impulse  to  murder,  lust  and  theft, 
which  our  brute  ancestors  and  caveman  forebears 
gave  way  to  with  little  or  no  restraint  or  compunc- 
tion, implies  that  we  unconsciously  desire  to  carry 
out  these  same  impulses.  Our  civilized  mind  will 
not  permit  the  brute  Unconscious  in  us  to  execute 
these  impulses  so  they  have  to  find  their  gratifica- 
tion in  dream  pictures.  This  gives  us  a  hint  of 
what  the  dream  wish  is  like;  it  means  that  by 


The  Internal  Censor  and  Guardian         7 1 

nature  we  have  these  impulses  and  we  would  like 
to  give  way  to  them  when  they  are  roused  and 
stimulated.  In  our  waking  life  something  angers 
us  and  our  impulse  is  to  avenge  ourselves — it  is  a 
murder  wish ;  our  latent  wish  to  murder  is  stimu- 
lated by  the  person  who  angers  us.  As  to  our  im- 
pulse dreams,  the  thing  which  would  shock  us 
would  be  a  recognition  of  the  people  whom  we  un- 
consciously wish  to  victimize.  The  Censor,  how- 
ever, witholds  this  recognition.  When  in  our 
dreams  we  wish  for  the  death  of  somebody  near 
to  us — a  desire  which  our  uncivilized  ancestors 
could  carry  out  to  their  heart's  content — the 
Censor  utterly  obscures  the  true  nature  of  this 
wish  by  changing  the  dream  into  a  fear  on  our 
part  lest  that  beloved  person  will  die.  But  an 
anxiety  dream  usually  is  only  a  thin  disguise  drawn 
over  a  startling  wish  dream.  The  mere  fact  that 
only  an  insignificant  handful  of  people  recognizes 
or  is  trained  to  recognize  the  often  brutal  charac- 
ter of  dream  wishes  indicates  how  successfully  for 
the  greater  majority  of  people  the  Censor  con- 
ceals the  true  meaning  of  the  dream. 

We  have  emphasized  the  brute  element  in  our 
dream  life  for  the  explicit  reason  of  showing  the 
care  the  Censor  has  for  our  peace  of  mind — it 
does  not  allow  us  to  recognize  our  unconscious  de- 
sires. Further,  if  we  were  to  enter  deeply  the 


72      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

question  of  the  Censor  in  the  matter  of  interfering 
with  the  dream  pictures,  we  would  find  how  fre- 
quently the  dream  life  instead  of  merely  picturing 
the  fulfillment  of  primitive  wishes  actually  tries 
to  find  a  solution  of  moral  problems.  This  can 
mean  only  that  the  Censor  has  a  distinctly  moral 
character  and  endeavors  to  clear  our  conscience 
and  guide  our  conduct  by  working  out  our  diffi- 
culties, while  our  waking  mind  sleeps  and  re- 
cuperates. This  interference  of  the  Censor,  now 
changing  this  dream,  now  offering  this  or  that 
solution,  is  of  the  utmost  importance  for  the 
analyzer  of  dreams.  Sometimes  a  dream  has  no 
other  value  in  the  process  of  discovering  the  rea- 
son for  a  nervous  symptom  than  the  revelation 
that  the  Censor  has  been  strenuously  at  work. 
Why  is  this  changed,  why  is  this  portion  obscure, 
why  is  the  olream  so  cut  up  ? — these  are  the  ques. 
tions  the  Re-educator  has  to  answer  satisfactorily. 
We  have  said  that  the  Censor  is  weakest  at 
night  and  that  consequently  the  Unconscious  is 
able  to  dramatize  in  our  dreams  some  unusual 
wishes.  In  this  connection  we  might  add  that  in 
our  moments  of  revery,  the  Censor  lifts  its  censor- 
ship more  or  less  and  this  is  why  our  reveries  some- 
times contain  rather  brutal  wishes.  Again,  in  un- 
guarded and  uncensored  bits  of  conversation  we 
disclose  our  primitive  wishes  often  in  this  kind  of 


The  Internal  Censor  and  Guardian         73 

a  phrase,  "It  would  be  a  good  thing  if  so-and-so 
were  to  pass  on."  It  is  a  common  phrase  but 
the  Unconscious  is  saying,  "I  wish  so-and-so  were 
dead." 

In  fact,  all  through  our  waking  life  the  Censor 
is  at  work,  now  vigorously,  now  relaxedly,  and  it 
is  sometimes  amusing  to  detect  its  interference  or 
attempts  to  cover  up  the  thoughts  which  spring 
out  of  our  Unconscious.  We  make  slips  of  the 
tongue,  we  give  way  to  queer,  nervous  gestures 
or  blushings  or  we  have  sudden,  irrational  lapses 
of  memory.  Such  unexpected  uprushes  from  the 
Unconscious  cause  us  frequent  moments  of  em- 
barrassment and  the  Censor  tries  its  best  to  gloss 
them  over  just  as  we  consciously  change  a  laugh 
to  a  cough  or  resort  to  other  bits  of  subterfuge. 
Slips  of  the  tongue,  nervous  gestures,  lapses  of 
memory  or  any  other  unconscious  manifestation 
of  the  Unconscious  are  important  to  the  Re-educa- 
tor; he  at  once  becomes  eager  to  know  what  wish 
lies  in  the  Unconscious  which  is  strong  enough  to 
gain  this  or  that  momentary  control  of  our  motor 
faculties  (our  speech  and  gestures). 

The  Censor  is  the  pink  of  propriety.  It  tends 
to  restrain  the  artist  from  making  his  art  too  sen- 
suous and  the  poet  from  expressing  his  emotions 
too  exuberantly.  This  phase  of  the  censorship 
gives  rise  to  the  use  of  symbols.  The  censor  prac- 


74     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

tically  says  this  or  that  thought  however  extreme 
may  be  expressed  in  art,  literature  and  conversa- 
tion provided  a  symbol  or  substitute  idea  is  used 
which  is  not  too  explicit.  Our  conversation,  in  par- 
ticular, is  full  of  roundabout  expressions  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  Censor's  command  that  nothing 
morally  shocking  shall  be  too  blatantly  worded. 
Our  modified  oaths  and  expletives  are  just  so  many 
repressed  wishes  to  commit  murder  or  to 
blaspheme  God's  name  as  our  murderous, 
blasphemous  ancestors  actually  did  with  but  little 
restraint. 

The  Censor,  then,  is  the  guardian  of  our  at- 
tention, our  sleep  and  our  moral  sensibilities.  But 
the  wear  and  tear  of  life  may  weaken  the  censor- 
ship and,  therefore,  one  object  of  self-suggestion 
should  be  to  keep  the  censor  itself  in  good  health. 
To  this  end,  it  would  seem  helpful  to  suggest  and 
constantly  hold  such  ideas  as  "I  shall  more  and 
more  control  my  unconscious  impulses,"  "I  shall 
view  the  facts  of  life  in  their  right  perspective," 
"I  shall  be  superior  to  the  irritations  and  bom- 
bardments of  the  outside  world." 

The  Censor,  too,  has  its  diseases ;  it  not  merely 
requires  to  be  rested  and  strengthened,  it  actually 
needs  to  be  re-educated.  The  censorship  is  mor- 
bidly severe  sometimes  and  many  of  our  impulses 
far  too  repressed.  Not  everything  which  comes 


The  Internal  Censor  and  Guardian        75 

from  the  Unconscious  is  of  a  destructive  kind.  In 
fact,  one  of  the  lurking  dangers  in  discussing  the 
Unconscious  is  the  tendency  to  distort  the  sub- 
ject. No  apology  is  required  of  the  Unconscious 
at  its  best  for  it  is  a  storehouse  of  emotional  and 
spiritual  energy. 

When  the  Censor  overdoes  its  vigilance  there 
is  a  repression  of  this  or  that  impulse  which  left 
to  itself  would  free  our  personalities  from  their 
morbid  rigor  and  reserve.  Old  fashioned  Puritan- 
ism has  been  a  poor  schoolmaster  for  the  Censor. 
Puritanism  tends  to  repress  dogmatically  without 
allowing  the  Censor  to  use  its  own  healthy  judg- 
ment and  discrimination.  The  Censor  should  be 
educated  to  govern  with  a  loose  rein  and  to  grow 
in  wisdom  with  maturing  experience.  The  Censor 
like  the  Unconscious  needs  to  be  detached  from 
its  infantile  fixations  and  its  undue  notion  of 
parental  authority.  It  should  be  trained  in  in- 
dependence and  not  to  adhere  to  outgrown  pre- 
cepts. On  the  positive  side,  it  should  be  trained  to 
permit  spontaneously  the  appearance  of  every 
thought  and  impulse  which  gives  the  personality 
flexibility  and  initiative. 

There  are  many  instances  on  record  of  people 
who  have  had  premonitions,  warnings  and  guid- 
ance which  have  saved  them  more  than  once  from 
disaster  and  death.  While  these  secret  mental 


76     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

forces  cannot  be  explained,  it  would  seem,  how- 
ever, as  if  the  Censor  were  mysteriously  played 
upon  by  ether  vibrations  and  given  information 
of  a  kind  which  protected  the  bodily  and  spiritual 
personality.  We  might  submit  the  idea,  then, 
that  the  Censor,  whatever  faculty  it  is,  has  at 
times  in  the  case  of  some  people  a  veritable 
clairvoyance  and  mediumistic  foresight. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PERSONAL   RELIGION  AND  MENTAL   HEALTH 

RELIGION  has  a  profound  influence  on  our 
mental  health.  It  keeps  us  sane;  and  in  the 
most  satisfactory  restorations  of  nerve  and  soul 
and  in  the  completest  re-education  of  a  personality, 
religion  is  the  essential  factor.  Religion,  then, 
must  have  a  direct  bearing  on  our  Unconscious, 
on  the  Censor  within  us  and  our  conscious  mind. 
That  is,  our  religion  must  center  in  a  person  to 
whom  we  may  direct  the  required  "transference" 
of  our  deepest  emotions.  Jesus  Christ  fulfills  this 
requirement.  His  wonderful  character  makes 
Him  the  supreme  object  of  "transference"  and 
men  and  women  in  "fixing"  their  love  on  Him  be- 
come cured  and  re-educated  for  the  service  of  men. 
To  be  effective,  religion  must  be  personal.  It 
is  a  belief  in  the  goodness  of  God,  an  intimate 
communion  with  Him  through  prayer  and  an 
earnest  effort  to  live  unselfishly.  Personal  re- 
ligion means  following  Christ's  Spirit  in  all  the 
relationships  of  life — in  our  occupations,  our  fam- 

77 


78      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

ily  life  and  our  recreations.  When  we  are  drawn 
to  the  service  of  Christ  it  is  because  we  instinctive- 
ly believe  that  what  He  was,  He  still  is — the  di- 
vine Re-educator  and  Savior. 

One  of  the  striking  ways  in  which  Christ  was 
the  Savior  was  His  freely  presenting  Himself  to 
the  nervously  afflicted  as  the  healing  object  of 
their  "transference."  Jesus  anticipated  in  His 
methods  all  that  is  true  or  likely  to  be  lasting 
in  our  methods  of  curing  nervous  disorders. 
Naturally,  He  did  not  use  the  word  "unconscious," 
but  what  better  description  of  the  morbid  side  of 
the  Unconscious  is  there  than  the  one  He  gave 
as  we  have  it  in  the  i5th  chapter  of  St.  Matthew? 
We  have  only  to  substitute  for  His  word  "heart" 
our  word  "unconscious"  and  the  I9th  verse  reads : 
For  out  of  the  Unconscious  proceed  evil 
thoughts,  murders,  adulteries,  fornications,  thefts, 
false  witness,  blasphemies. 

Nor  did  Jesus  use  the  word  "transference,"  yet 
when  the  evil  spirits  commanded  Him  to  leave 
them  because  they  knew  Him,  it  is  not  straining 
the  meaning  too  much  to  suppose  that  evil  thoughts 
and  impulses,  which  like  demons  were  in  com- 
plete possession  of  their  victims,  were  momentarily 
transferring  to  Him  their  unconscious  hate  and 
fear.  When  we  recall  how  many  nervous  dis- 


Personal  Religion  and  Mental  Health       79 

orders  strive  to  the  utmost  not  to  be  cured,  we 
are  not  wide  of  the  mark  in  suggesting  that  the 
"devils"  implored  Christ  to  leave  them  in  peace 
because  after  all  they  were  only  morbid  eruptions 
from  the  Unconscious  which  craved  to  be  allowed 
to  continue  their  torments.  The  incident  in  St. 
Luke  IV:33  is  a  good  example  of  hate  and  fear 
transference,  and  any  re-educator  of  our  day  sees 
similar  though  perhaps  milder  forms  of  this  kind 
of  transference.  The  "devils"  or  as  we  call  them, 
the  infantile  fixations  and  complexes,  recognized 
in  Him  their  destroyer.  By  crying  out  to  Him 
vehemently  they  fulfilled  their  hate  wishes,  that 
is,  Jesus  relieved  their  emotional  pressure  and  then 
proceeded  to  re-educate  the  nervous  victim's  per- 
sonality. For  such  people  He  was  indeed  a  Savior. 
Then  there  was  that  other  class  of  sick  folk 
who  found  in  Him  the  true  object  of  their  deepest 
affections.  He  was  a  Savior  to  them  because  all 
the  unfulfilled  love  wishes  which  had  been  craving 
in  vain  for  gratification  were  suddenly  released  and 
fulfilled  in  Him.  This  suggests  that  Jesus  had 
the  power  instantly  to  uncover  a  person's  Uncon- 
scious. Whatever  is  the  right  approach  to  this 
question  of  His  unusual  knowledge  of  the  souls  of 
.men  and  women,  it  is  certain  that,  while  His  cures 
and  re-educations  worked  rapidly,  yet  certain 
phases  in  the  means  He  used  and  the  reactions  He 


8o     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

stimulated  remind  us  of  phases  which  the  modern 
Re-educator  encounters. 

What  Jesus  did,  He  still  does.  He  draws  men 
and  women  to  Him  though  some  of  them  are 
drawn  while  a  veritable  rebellion  is  going  on  within 
them  at  the  thought  of  Him.  That  is,  like  those 
possessed  with  devils,  some  people  have  to  suffer 
severe  reactions  while  they  approach  Him.  This 
is,  perhaps,  an  unusual  feature  in  religious  ex- 
perience, yet  a  well-attested  experience.  It  can 
mean  only  that  such  people  have  a  veritable  intui- 
tion, that  to  be  converted  must  involve  for  them 
a  complete  change  in  their  Unconscious;  they 
realize  that  Jesus  sees  them  through  and  through 
and  knows  especially  the  secret  springs  of  action. 
This  is  the  same  as  saying  that  there  are  "fixa- 
tions," memories  and  impulses  within  them  which 
dread  the  idea  of  being  changed  and  cured.  Such 
people  would  cry  out  for  deliverance  from  any 
contact  with  the  Spirit  of  Christ  while  on  their 
better  side  they  know  that  this  Spirit  will  remake 
them.  When  they  finally  make  the  complete  sur- 
render, the  peaceful  reaction  they  feel  is  like  the 
peace  the  possessed  felt  when  Jesus  ordered  the 
"evil  spirits"  to  leave  their  victims.  What  we 
have  here  is  a  special  form  of  religious  reaction 
to  the  thought  of  Christ  which  continues  our  in- 
terest in  the  question  as  to  what  part  the  Un- 


Personal  Religion  and  Mental  Health      81 

conscious  plays  in  religious  conversions.  One 
thing  we  do  know  and  that  is  conversion  brings 
peace  of  mind  and  steadiness  of  soul. 

The  larger  group  of  religious  people,  however, 
are  drawn  to  Christ  without  this  feeling  of  re- 
bellion within  the  Unconscious.  They  come 
naturally  to  Him  and  it  would  seem  as  if  without 
any  violent  change  their  infantile  "fixations"  and 
the  whole  of  their  unconscious  emotional  life  seize 
upon  His  divine  person.  Unconsciously — for  be 
it  remembered  our  emphasis  is  on  the  relation  of 
Christ  to  our  Unconscious — the  kind  of  person- 
ality which  turns  to  Christ  in  an  evenly  progressive 
way  recognizes  in  Him  an  idealized  earthly  father 
and  mother  and  sister  and  brother  and  all  the 
loved  ones  of  childhood.  On  the  contrary,  those 
who  come  to  Him  with  half  their  personality  in 
rebellion  at  the  idea,  unconsciously  recognize  in 
Him  perhaps  only  a  terrifying  resemblance  to  per- 
sons in  their  childhood  whose  righteous  wrath  they 
at  some  forgotten  time  provoked.  Whatever 
emotional  wishes  they  felt  toward  these  people, 
they  now  under  the  form  of  inner  rebellion  "trans- 
fer" to  Christ.  Strange  as  it  may  seem  Christ, 
according  to  the  evidence  of  religious  experience, 
offers  Himself  as  the  object  of  their  hatred  and 
fear,  in  order  that  He  may  ease  off  the  emotional 
pressure,  and  re-educate  them. 


82      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

The  emotional  hold  which  Christ  has  over  His 
followers  is  due  to  His  ability  to  gratify  the  un- 
conscious love  wishes.  The  frequent  conscious  and 
unconscious  disappointment,  which  even  our  dear- 
est ones  cause  us,  utterly  vanishes  when  we  come 
to  know  the  idealized  Friend.  Our  need  of  Him 
is  lifelong  and  our  love  for  His  person  is  a  spiritual 
achievement.  But  our  highest  development  does 
not  end  with  our  personal  love  of  Christ,  for  as 
Jesus  bade  them,  which  followed  Him  in  the  days 
of  His  flesh,  go  and  serve  the  needs  of  men  and 
women,  so  religious  experience  teaches  us  that  He 
bids  us  extend  our  personal  love  for  Him  into  a 
life  of  service  for  Him  as  He  lives  in  other  people. 
In  this  way  Christ  re-educates  us  and  saves  us 
from  ourselves. 

Christ  cures,  therefore,  first  by  offering  Himself 
as  the  supreme  object  of  our  "transference"  and 
secondly  by  re-educating  our  activity  to  further 
His  work  among  His  brethren.  This  relationship 
with  Him  is  sustained  by  faith,  prayer,  worship 
and  good  works.  We  will  call  it  the  relationship 
of  prayer. 

This  relationship  of  prayer — the  love  for 
Christ's  Will  and  Service — is  thoroughly  tested 
when  a  person  deliberately  relies  on  it  to  help  him 
through  the  dark  defiles  of  unpleasant  experience. 
If  this  relationship  to  Christ  is  not  to  be  a  merely 


Personal  Religion  and  Mental  Health      83 

sentimental  thing  it  should  so  be  trusted  and  its 
fruits  recognized.  Consider,  for  instance,  the  num- 
bers of  people  who  break  down  nervously  simply 
because  they  have  nourished  discontent  and  re- 
sentment at  their  uncongenial  lot  in  life;  but  the 
message  of  religion  for  such  people  is  that  God's 
temple  is  in  every  nook  and  cranny  of  the  globe,  no 
matter  how  obscure.  For  such  people  the  prayer 
life  might  not  only  be  the  means  by  which  they 
were  able  to  preserve  their  mental  health  but  the 
lamp  to  show  them  fields  of  social  service.  This 
is  why  instruction  in  religion  and  service  can  be 
made  almost  the  supreme  factor  in  re-educating  a 
person's  nerves  and  stabilizing  his  emotions.  If 
we  allow  our  surroundings  to  make  us,  their  work- 
manship is  apt  to  be  disastrous  for  our  peace  of 
mind,  but  fortified  and  inspired  by  the  relationship 
of  prayer  we  can  transform  utterly  the  emotional 
coloring  of  our  physical  and  social  environment. 
This  fact  is  illustrated  over  and  over  again  in  the 
lives  of  missionaries. 

Naturally  we  desire  as  many  approaches  to 
Christ  as  possible.  We  know  that  He  satisfies  our 
unconscious  longings  and  therein  puts  His  healing 
finger  on  the  cause  of  our  mental  and  nervous 
troubles.  But  we  need  a  social,  intellectual  and 
artistic  approach  to  Him.  That  is,  the  multifari- 
ous activities  and  tastes  which  we  consciously  de- 


84     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

sire  to  follow  out  might  well  be  brought  into  re- 
lationship with  Christ.  It  is  not  merely  the  un- 
conscious wishes  which  Christ  is  able  to  sanctify 
but  the  desires  of  the  whole  personality. 

The  Christian  Church  offers  Christ  to  us  as  the 
"first  among  many  brethren,"  as  the  incomparable 
interest  of  the  intellect,  as  the  inspirer  of 'the  finest 
literature  and  art  and  as  the  soul  of  ceremonial 
worship. 

It  is  the  mission  of  the  Church  to  bear  witness 
to  the  ever  healing  presence  of  Christ  and  to  set 
forth  the  ways  in  which  men  and  women  may  come 
to  Him  and  be  spiritually  re-educated.  Christ  is 
present  in  a  social  way  where  two  or  three  gather 
in  His  name;  He  is  present  in  the  Bible,  in  the 
Holy  Communion  and  in  the  Church's  worship,  be 
it  liturgical  or  extemporary.  The  therapeutic 
value  of  the  Church  idea  rests  in  the  fact  that  the 
Church  is  a  brotherhood  and  declares  that  the 
really  healthy  person  is  he  who  mingles  with  his 
fellows  in  their  joys  and  in  their  sorrows.  The 
Church  is  a  saving  protest  against  a  morbid,  self- 
centred  individualism.  Christ  was  the  Son  of  Man 
and  He  bids  us  be  likeminded.  He  is  the  bridge 
over  which  we  pass  from  our  own  prisons  to  a  life 
of  freedom  through  service.  Such  service  is  the 
guarantee  of  healthy  minds  and  while  the  external 
features  of  the  Church  may  be  of  great  help  to  an 


Personal  Religion  and  Mental  Health      85 

expansion  of  the  personality  and  to  a  consecration 
to  service,  yet  the  vital  force  back  of  all  externals 
is  the  relationship  of  prayer.  Such  prayer  is 
greatly  helped  by  self-suggestion  in  moments  of 
relaxation.  It  is  then  that  a  person  may  suspend 
the  fret  and  hurry  of  his  superficial  self  and  allow 
the  ever  present  Spirit  of  Christ  to  invade  him 
and  crowd  out  his  selfish  tastes  and  interests  by 
filling  him  with  consecrated  thoughts  and  purposes. 
To  suggest  at  stated  times  to  one's  self  the  ideas 
of  faith,  hope  and  love  is  a  telling  way  to  build  up 
the  prayer  relationship. 

The  pastor  and  priest,  too,  can  greatly  com- 
fort people  in  times  of  sorrow,  tragedy  and 
deprivation  by  relaxing  them  and  then  by  using 
applied  suggestion.  By  suggesting  to  the  afflicted 
the  power  of  faith  and  hope  and  the  presence  of 
Christ,  the  pastor  can,  at  least,  minimize,  if  not 
wholly  eliminate,  the  morbid,  paralyzing  effects  of 
grief  and  ward  off  the  brooding  disposition  which 
is  the  soul's  effort  to  turn  inward  upon  itself  and 
take  refuge  in  its  saddened  feelings.  In  a  similar 
way,  in  his  ministrations  to  shut-ins,  to  the  bed- 
ridden and  the  helpless,  the  pastor  by  means  of  ap- 
plied suggestion  can  effectively  bring  to  bear  the 
truths  and  consolations  of  religion  for  relieving 
the  sense  of  loneliness  and  want  and  for  making 
real  the  sustaining  power  of  Christ.  From  such 


86     Religions  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

applied  suggestion  the  sufferer  usually  learns  the 
art  of  self-suggestion  and  grows  in  the  thought  that 
religion  is  not  merely  a  make-shift  compensation 
for  the  loss  of  earthly  comforts  but  is  itself  the 
pearl  of  great  price. 

Christians  have  Biblical  authority  for  believing 
that  the  Church  has  power  to  forgive  sins  and 
whatever  our  view  of  this  may  be,  we  must  admit 
that  the  priestly  or  pastoral  absolution  of  sins  is 
a  splendidly  affirmative  statement  that  God  actual- 
ly forgives  the  sinner's  guilt  and  continues  His 
gracious  communion  with  the  repentant  soul.  The 
Church's  absolution  in  the  name  of  Christ  makes 
greatly  for  mental  stability  by  removing  the  sense 
of  guilt  and  estrangement  from  the  Heavenly 
Father.  It  could  be  made  of  even  greater  value 
in  its  healing  aspect  if  the  priest  or  pastor  who 
hears  confessions  were  to  supplement  the  idea  of 
absolution  with  the  more  positive  thought  that  the 
penitent  is  a  child  of  God  and  that  there  is  no 
condemnation  for  them  who  are  in  Christ  Jesus. 
That  is,  in  addition  to  the  bare  thought  that  guilt 
has  been  done  away  and  sins  forgiven,  the  grant- 
ing of  absolution  should  be  made  the  occasion  for 
building  up  the  penitent's  thought  with  stimulating 
ideas  of  his  actual  sonship  in  Christ.  In  fact,  both 
the  mentally  sick  person  in  his  efforts  to  think  heal- 
ing thoughts  and  the  Re-educator  who  recognizes 


Personal  Religion  and  Mental  Health       87 

religion  as  a  healing  force  would  do  well  to  make 
good  use  of  the  Bible's  reassuring  messages  of 
hope,  of  restoration  and  of  our  oneness  with  God. 

Self-forgiveness  is  also  a  vital  factor  in  the 
working  of  any  cure  and  in  the  process  of  re-educa- 
tion. The  nervous  troubles  which  arise  because 
we  have  deliberately  defied  the  moral  law  need  to 
be  faced  resolutely  and  a  course  of  action  deter- 
mined upon  which  shall  make  impossible  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  nervous  symptoms.  The  first  thing 
in  a  case  of  this  kind  is  to  declare  frequently  our 
own  absolution,  our  new  birth  and  our  resurrection 
to  the  right  kind  of  self-confidence.  Many  a  per- 
son in  order  to  become  well  needs  only  to  forgive 
his  own  sins,  provided  he  is  determined  to  attain 
to  righteousness  of  life.  Despair  and  morbid  sor- 
row for  one's  sin  are  so  many  barriers  to  the  ever 
ready  Spirit  of  God  to  forgive  and  restore.  Such 
sorrow  and  despair  wilfully  indulged  in  are  them- 
selves grievous  offences  against  sound  mental 
health. 

When  we  take  up  such  a  subject  as  forgiving  a 
sin  which  we  remember  to  have  committed  we  have 
left  the  Unconscious  and  are  dealing  with  the 
waking,  conscious  life  and  its  ideals  and  moral 
standards.  It  was  on  the  conscious,  moral  life 
that  Jesus  laid  His  emphasis.  His  words  were  of 
love,  of  sacrifice  of  faith  in  God  and  the  great 


88      Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

moral  and  spiritual  qualities  in  general.  What  He 
preached  He  exemplified  and  showed  what  the 
normal  life  should  be.  It  is,  indeed,  necessary  for 
our  re-education  that  we  appreciate  what  He 
taught  and  what  His  manner  of  life  was,  because 
in  Him  we  have  a  standard  by  which  to  re-educate 
the  censoring  faculty  in  our  make-up.  Too  many 
people  are  under  the  impression  that  to  be  religious 
means  that  they  must  lead  utterly  repressed  lives. 
This  repression  is  often  the  cause  of  nervous 
symptoms  for  the  simple  reason  that  if  an  instinct 
is  repressed  it  is  bound  to  avenge  itself  by  appear- 
ing in  sickly  forms.  Jesus  lived  a  natural  life 
among  men  and  women  and  did'not  forcibly  re- 
press the  social  instinct.  He  was  free  of  class 
prejudice  and  had  none  of  the  Pharisee  about  Him. 
Many  nervous  disorders  are  due  to  repression  of 
the  social  instinct.  The  shut-in  personality  is 
melancholy  because  it  does  not  expand  with  inter- 
est in  all  sorts  of  people.  The  Censor  should  de- 
liberately try  to  break  with  any  anti-social  inhibi- 
tion. The  Censor  is  greatly  influenced  by  educa- 
tion and  should  be  indoctrinated  with  a  rational 
view  of  the  relation  between  the  sexes  and  of  the 
question  of  amusements.  But  naturally,  if  for  a 
well-balanced  mind  the  Censor  needs  in  the  case  of 
some  people  to  be  expanded  and  made  flexible,  so, 
too,  in  the  case  of  others  it  needs  to  be  narrowed 


Personal  Religion  and  Mental  Health     89 

lest  it  condone  courses  of  behavior  which  spell 
nervous  disaster.  The  naturalness  of  Jesus,  His 
appreciation  of  human  life  and  also  His  accurate 
vision  of  what  the  restraints  on  human  impulses 
should  be,  afford  the  rational  standard  for  human 
conduct. 

Jesus  was  pre-eminently  a  .teacher  and  his  teach- 
ings and  life  work  are  the  foundation  of  a  healthy 
philosophy  of  life.  There  is  a  Christian  phi- 
losophy and  estimate  of  the  value  of  life's  ex- 
periences. Such  a  philosophy  of  life  is  a  thing  to 
be  meditated  upon  in  moments  of  quiet  thinking. 
Times  of  quiet  thinking  are  necessary  for  the  nor- 
mal growth  of  a  well-ordered  mind.  The  Chris- 
tian view  of  life  revolves  about  such  pivotal  points 
as  God  is  our  Father,  therefore  whatever  happens 
can  be  made  to  yield  us  its  blessing;  each  human 
life  is  a  veritable  entrance  of  God  into  the  world  to 
learn  about  His  creation  through  each  person's 
experience ;  though  we  live  in  a  world  of  sin,  God 
works  out  everyone's  salvation  through  trial  and 
fire.  Thoughts  of  this  kind  might  well  occupy  the 
attention  until  each  one  is  saturated  with  the  feel- 
ing of  his  unique  place  in  the  universe.  One  should 
not  shrink  from  thinking  that  one  is  of  value  in 
God's  scheme  of  things.  In  a  word,  to  see  the 
issues  of  life  in  a  religious  perspective ;  to  see  God 
in  control  of  what  appears  as  inexorable  destiny 


90     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

and  fate,  and  to  be  thankful  for  the  discipline  of 
events,  are  ways  of  thinking  which  bring  cheerful- 
ness and  nerve  control. 

Again,  Jesus  was  a  lover  and  observer  of  Na- 
ture. A  Christian  view  of  Nature  should  be  part 
of  a  healthy  mind's  meditation.  If  a  few  weeks 
spent  in  the  country  will  bring  about  a  restoration 
of  one's  nerves  and  a  calm  to  one's  mind,  so  also 
the  mere  contemplation  of  blue  skies,  of  valleys, 
wooded  hills  and  of  beautiful  landscapes  in  general 
is  certain  to  induce  a  feeling  of  restedness  and  the 
rejuvenation  of  one's  spirits.  It  is  because  the 
Christian  believes  that  God  dwells  in  the  heart  of 
Nature. 

Modern  education  has  done  so  much  in  the  way 
of  material  advancement  and  for  the  enjoyment 
of  intellectual  and  artistic  interests  that  one  dislikes 
offering  any  criticism  of  the  spirit  of  our  schools 
and  colleges.  But  for  the  health  of  our  minds  and 
the  stability  of  our  nerves  modern  education  is 
too  crudely  materialistic;  it  leaves  God  out  of  con- 
sideration. The  emphasis  of  our  education  on 
the  universality  of  natural  law  tends  to  inculcate 
a  deadening  fatalism  and  unbelief  in  spiritual 
realities.  The  trouble  lies  in  the  fact  that  modern 
schooling  does  not  train  us  to  appreciate  the  won- 
derful manifestations  of  the  good  side  of  our  Un- 
conscious. Yet  out  of  the  Unconscious  come 


Personal  Religion  and  Mental  Health       91 

marvellous  flashes  of  faith,  visions  of  hope,  in- 
spiring imaginations,  to  say  nothing  of  the  many 
unaccountable  intuitions  and  instances  of  clairvoy- 
ance— all  which  we  call  the  psychic  aspects  of  life. 

It  is  chiefly  the  Bible,  with  its  insistence  on  the 
presence  of  God  in  the  psychic  facts  of  life,  which 
at  all  corrects  our  too  materialistic  way  of  looking 
at  the  Universe.  According  to  the  Bible,  our 
Christian  Church  thrived  on  psychic  experiences. 
Dreams,  visions  and  ecstasies  are  in  the  Scripture 
acknowledged  frankly  to  be  the  working  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Such  things  were  the  life  of  the 
Church  until  the  over-intellectual  view  became  su- 
preme. But  to-day  we  are  beginning  to  understand 
the  value  of  the  Unconscious  in  the  life  of  the 
Church  and  for  the  mental  health  of  the  individual. 
Both  the  Church  and  the  Individual  are  too  shut-in 
and  repressed.  What  is  needed  to  free  the  Church 
and  the  individual  from  their  lack  of  spiritual 
spontaneity  is  a  greater  appreciation  of  the  psychic 
side  of  life,  for  God  is  the  creator  of  the  psychic 
as  well  as  the  purely  rational  and  conscious  life. 

This  leads  naturally  to  the  subject  of  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul  and  here  again  the  modern 
emphasis  on  the  material  side  of  life  has  over- 
shadowed the  question  of  another  world  beyond 
death.  Yet  the  insidious  notion  that  death  ends 
our  personal  existence  accounts  for  our  modern 


92     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

feverish,  nerve-wracking  haste  to  live  as  sensuously 
as  we  can  in  order,  as  it  were,  to  enrich  our  life 
which  so  shortly  must  end  forever.  But  such  a 
greedy  way  of  life  can  not  assure  mental  health 
or  those  qualities  of  mind  which  are  necessary  to 
the  enjoyment  of  life  whether  it  be  long  or  short. 
The  soul  must  take  time  to  grow  and  to  learn  the 
art  of  adjusting  itself  to  adverse  conditions.  But 
no  sooner  is  this  adjustment  achieved  than  life 
itself  ends.  A  belief  in  immortality,  however, 
gives  us  a  basis  for  developing  our  lives  as  if  they 
were  to  live  for  ever  and  for  looking  at  life's 
experiences  as  a  preparation  for  a  life  hereafter 
with  God,  the  Father. 

The  outstanding  thought  in  Jesus'  preaching 
was  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  we  must  relate 
this  idea  to  the  question  of  our  spiritual  re-educa- 
tion. The  Christian  believes  that  God  is  like  His 
Son  so  that  whatever  Christ  means  for  our  Un- 
conscious, our  internal  Censor  and  our  waking, 
conscious  mind,  God  the  Father  has  the  same 
meaning.  The  chief  tendency  of  the  Unconscious 
is  to  hold  us  in  bondage  to  our  infantile  affections. 
We  tend  to  regress  into  the  past,  that  is,  our  first 
likes  and  dislikes  determine  very  largely  the  way 
we  regard  both  people  and  places  in  our  adult 
years.  This  tenacity  on  our  part  of  infantile  af- 
fections shows  clearly  how  naturally  mankind 


Personal  Religion  and  Mental  Health      93 

longs  for  a  home  and  dear  faces.  But  re-education 
of  the  Unconscious  so  often  has  the  task  of  break- 
ing up  these  infantile,  unconscious  affections  which 
hold  our  later,  maturer  lives  in  bondage  to  the 
past.  Clearly,  then,  what  is  needed  is  not  a  home 
which  draws  man  backward  and  strives  to  keep 
him  undeveloped,  but  a  home  to  which  he  can  look 
forward  to.  It  is  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  as  * 

Jesus  indicates,  which  supplies  us  with  the  idea 
of  a  better  home  yet  to  be.  In  a  word  the  idea 
of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  bids  us  break  with  our 
unconscious  longing  to  remain  contented  with  the 
fleeting  scenes  of  earth  and  instead  draws  us  for- 
ward to  contemplate  and  long  for  our  new  home  in 
the  heavens  where  God  is  our  Father.  God  as  a 
Father  transfers  our  earthly  fixations  to  find  their 
true  realization  and  fulfillment  in  Himself.  He 
re-educates  us  throughout  our  life  by  providing  us 
with  the  experience  of  discipline  and  suffering 
which  shall  prepare  us  the  better  for  the  life  here- 
after. The  Fatherhood  of  God  becomes  the  su- 
preme Christian  idea  because  of  the  spiritual 
qualities  it  calls  into  activity.  It  causes  us  to  look 
forward;  to  endure  patiently  while  we  are  here  /. 
and  to  live  as  people  who  must  develop  spiritual 
natures  befitting  the  new  home  which  is  to  be  ours. 
Innumerable  are  the  people  who  throughout  the 
checkered  course  of  their  lives  have  demonstrated 


94     Religious  Aspects  of  Scientific  Healing 

the  sustaining  effect  of  this  belief  in  the  Father- 
hood of  God.  Many  a  martyr  and  saint,  many  a 
bed-ridden  person,  many  a  soul,  called  upon  to  en- 
dure years  of  living  death,  has  trusted  implicitly 
in  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  been  wonderfully 
upborne  when  no  ray  of  earthly  comfort  or  con- 
solation shone  upon  him.  People  of  this  metal 
exist  in  large  numbers  to-day  and  probably  will 
always  exist.  Their  faith,  their  clear  recognition 
of  God  as  the  wise  dispenser  of  their  destiny,  and 
their  willingness  to  do  His  will  cheerfully  make 
them  indeed  the  salt  of  the  earth  and  the  living 
demonstration  that  those  who  trust  God  need  have 
no  fear  for  their  mental  health  and  endurance. 

In  many  ways  man  declares  himself  to  be  a 
child,  especially  in  the  presence  of  the  mysterious 
vicissitudes  of  life.  But  we  are  the  children  of 
Nature  first  and  children  of  God  only  by  grace 
and  spiritual  re-education.  The  mind,  therefore, 
which  would  always  be  healthy  and  triumphant 
over  the  facts  of  life,  must  not  look  backward  and 
crave  to  remain  shackled  to  a  childish  past,  but 
must  fasten  its  gaze  on  the  homeland  to  be  and 
seek  after  such  re-education  and  moral  rectitude 
as  is  required  for  eternal  life  with  the  Father  in 
Heaven — "Except  ye  be  converted  and  become 
as  little  children  ye  shall  not  enter  into  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven." 


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